I've never really been afraid to take a risk. Sometimes perhaps I should be, but it must be working out well enough because I keep taking chances....and I know I'm blessed to have many around me, especially those that matter most, that support whatever directions that has taken me. (you know who you are :)
So when the opportunity came to 'step out' of my job and accept a social leave assignment, I thought about it just long enough to say, "yeah, I can do that". (Yep, that was the clue to the name...."SteppingOutSocial", and all the other more clever names I thought of were already taken:)
So in the spirit of 'with the end in mind', I'm going to write the last line of this blog, which will get reposted sometime around a year from now.
"I can't believe what an amazing experience I have had, and how thankful I am for the opportunity".
This blog isn't going to be about the details of the assignment....those are just the tools and skills that allowed me to be selected. I am going to write about what it means to be applying a lifetime of skills towards helping an organization literally make changes in the world for those that need it desperately, and often have no voice....how can a year helping children all over the planet be anything but one of my life's greatest contributions?
I'm looking at a quote on my wall. It has traveled with me from office to office for better than 20 years. Most know it (although critics argue incessantly about crediting the proper source). The lines that always resonate, "...To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
Wow. I get to do this.
So, if that journey is an interest to you, and if my writing doesn't bore you to tears, follow along. Comment. Encourage. or simply read along with me.
