A Drink of Honey

As a long time recluse, I can understand in a very real way what you are going through.

Rather than the word surrender, however, I think more appropriate words would be compassion and respect. Compassion and respect for yourself, to be accurate.

Although I don’t know you, I would bet that one of the reasons that you’re as successful as you are in your business is because you are able to soberly and accurately gauge a situation and develop a response using the tools and people/talents available to you. When it comes to business you don’t fool yourself with fanciful dreams about having ideal business associates or employers. You just get the job done given the material you have to work with.

I would ask you to at least try to have respect for your self, for the person that you are. Look at you as the person that you have become. Look at your talents, your skills, your strengths, and the things that you spend your time involved with. Try to look at this person using a bit of objectivity – the same skills you use in your daily business life – and you will meet a person whom you have probably lived with for a very long time, perhaps without really knowing. Meet “You”, the real “You”. And for a few moments at least, respect her, her accomplishments and her predilections – she is living a life that is very important to her. And only she, as a whole person, can say why this life, the life that she is actually living, is so important to her, so fulfilling and meaningful to her.

Sure we can criticize her if we compare her to some idealized version that we might fancifully dream up. But this would not be fair to the real you. It would not show very much respect, or compassion, to the real person that she is, with all her particular interests and proclivities, with her wealth of skills. It would be like trying to put a star shaped peg into a square hole.

And when we realize that the real you is fulfilling a life that is very deeply important to her whole self, expressing her self truly and honestly as she is, then we honor her for her courage and determination and for the gifts of beauty and life that she contributes to reality.

Sure, each of us can spend our time with dreams of meeting Mr. Right and having a wonderful relationship. But let’s be honest, if that were really the most important thing to you then you would have quit that job at 25 y.o. and gone on the dating circuit in earnest.

As it is, in another few years many of your H.S. and College girlfriends will be going through divorces, and their families will be breaking up (not a pleasant experience to dream about). They will be entering a job market as single moms, with little experience in business and few developed talents to put on their resumes. Whereas you, with your wealth of experience in dealing with so many parts of your business, will be an honorable, established, and valued woman in your field.

Please don’t lose your dreams of love and family, because having those dreams is also what makes up you. Its one of the qualities that makes you all the more human and sensitive to life.

But one day, if we suddenly discover that we have become something other than what we hoped for and dreamed about becoming all our lives, we have to wake up and see that person that we are and try to cherish them for what they are. Realizing the road that we have traveled is the one that’s important to us, the one that’s the most meaningful for us to discover.