We had a nice drive down to St. George yesterday. I enjoyed
listening to "Meet the Robinsons" that my 10, 12, and 16 year old
daughters were watching in the back seat. One of the key messages of
the movie is "let go of the past and keep moving forward". Lewis:
I don't even know what I'm doing.
Wilbur:
Keep moving forward.
Lewis:
I mean, this stuff is way too advanced for me.
Wilbur:
Keep moving forward.
Lewis:
And what if I can't fix this, what are we going to do?
Wilbur:
Keep moving forward.
Lewis:
Why do you keep saying that? And don't just say keep moving forward!
Wilbur:
It's my dad's motto.
Lewis:
Why would his motto be keep moving forward?
Wilbur:
It's what he does. Running
my first two marathons back in 1982 when I was 22 years old changed my
life. I was on a sub-3 hour pace in the first marathon then hit the
wall hard at 20 miles and ended up walking most of the last 6 miles (I
had never heard of carbo loading, and I don't think gels hadn't been
invented yet). I ran the second marathon in 2:52 and felt great the
whole way. Life is like that. Sometimes life seems easy. Sometimes life
seems really really hard. Over the past 26 years, whenever my life has
seemed really really hard, so often I've relied on what I learned from
those two marathons: 1) I can do hard things (i.e., self confidence),
and 2) Just keep taking one more step and you'll eventually get there
(i.e., keep moving forward). When I look back at my life I'm
amazed at the distance I've covered, and I'm very grateful to a loving
Heavenly Father for being my training partner every step of the way,
even when I felt like I was running alone. I went through the typical
mid-life crisis (self-evaluation) a few years ago, but I think I'm past
that. I've made a lot of mistakes, and continue to, but I have no
regrets. The journey, including the hard times and mistakes, has led me
to where I am today. It has been an awesome adventure so far, and
the adventure rolls on. I found out about 2.5 weeks ago that after
16+ years at my current company my project is being "restructured" and
my position is being eliminated. My first two thoughts after my boss
left my office after telling me were, "Well, this will be a new life
experience." and "The Lord has always taken care of me. It will be
interesting to see how things work out this time." I was ready for a
change. This kick in the pants is very likely to turn out to be a great
blessing. I'm not overly concerned at this point. My last day
isn't until November 1st. There's a pretty good chance I can find
another position in the company, and I also have a good lead outside the
company. I will also get a nice severance package that will give me
plenty of time to find a new job, and the job market is pretty good.
You can never have two many job leads, however. If anyone knows of an
opportunity for a senior software engineer (Linux/Windows
Java/C/C++/C#) let me know. I know I've got a lot of friends out there.
Thank you for your friendship. If you feel to pray for me, that would
be great, but please don't worry about me. I'll be fine. I'll just keep
moving forward. I suspect the phrase "keep moving forward" may
enter my mind a time or two in the marathon tomorrow. I wish the best
of luck to all of you who are running. Whatever the day brings, just
appreciate and enjoy the adventure.
Sorry about the lengthy entry...too much time on my hands. I'm
sitting here alone in the dark in our hotel room waiting for my family
to wake up. I managed to not get up at the normal 5:00am, and even get
back to sleep, but I couldn't stay in bed much past 7:00am.
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