Conflicted

The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself. ~Garth Brooks

I am conflicted. There are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all that I want to accomplish. To engage in all the activities that help me grow in the way my soul wants to grow, in the way my soul needs to grow, in the way my soul desperately yearns to grow. There are not enough moments in the day to address the voices that attempt to pull me, simultaneously, in all directions.

I need to read every day. There are so many books I want to read, so many books vying for my attention, books that will seed in me grand ideas, take me to the lands blossoming with inspiration, blooming with discovery, books that will forever change the course of my thinking, of my life, that I fear passing on just one. I fear I will miss that one book, that I will miss a rose, that the rose in the bouquet of opportunity will wither and die before I can partake of its beauty, and will be, forever, a lost child, a child that will grow in beauty as it is espoused in the written word..

I need to write every day, not to complete my self-imposed challenge of a blog a day for 365 days. No. I need to write because the words not moved from head to paper will be lost as new words snuff them out, the thoughts I want to grow into companions, if not recorded, will be forever lost before they have time to seed, to flower and one of those flowers may just contain in its petal the answer I need to help me show another person the bud inside attempting to grow into an exquisite flower.

I need to work most days. For me, work not only pays the bills but is the place where I can help my teams achieve their goals, where I can unleash my creativity to help people grow, where I can use my leadership to help people do work that most uses the individual gifts bestowed upon them when they were conceived, when the seed and egg combined and exploded into life creating one of the infinitely unique flowers in the world, where I can help people feel valued not only for their contribution to the bottom line but, more importantly, for the unique individual God put in them when they were formed out of his love, where I can fulfill God's mandate to love my fellow man.

I must sleep. Though I wish I could never sleep. Sleep replenishes my body. Sleep puts me into a dream state where the seeds of creativity are formed, where the seeds of inspiration shape to be planted in writing, in work, in living, in loving.

I must love for life without love is a thorny stem without a rose to give it meaning. Life without love is a vase without a bouquet, an empty vessel missing that which gives the vase its very purpose for existing.

Every day, I must die. I must die to my ego that views the world as something to exploit to satisfy my needs, must die to my ego that would always put me before others, must die to my ego so that I can truly love, truly live.

Someday, I must die. I don't want to waste another day, don't want to let another sun set or moon rise that I don't put to effective use this one life God has granted me. Someday I must die and, it is only then when I am safely in his arms that I will no longer be conflicted.