On Tuesday night after a long weekend with family, I scheduled the latest flight out to spend a little more time at home (and a little less time away).  Enter thunderstorms to delay the flight well past the Sky Club hours, leaving me to generate my blog early and question why I’m compelled to follow through with a well intended plan turned sour.

If I were Goldilocks, I’d burn my mouth on the whole bowl of hot porridge, sit uncomfortably in the chair too big for me and sleep on the hardest bed with a rock for a pillow.

Why?

As one coworker recently put it, that’s very German of you.

-Stubborn?

-Stoic?

-Stupid?

Come to think about it, I’m the one sitting around the table in “those” meetings asking Why not?

-Searching for a better answer and willing to sacrifice (too?) much in order to solve a wicked hard problem?

-Over compensating for fear of ending up destitute?

-Was it ingrained in me as a kid that easy life leaves you soft, vulnerable (in a bad way), hard work is good for you and harder work is exceptional?

-Has it gone on so long that my trigger response is to pick challenge over charm?  Tough love over compassion even when everyone else can clearly see that compassion is the only answer?

I don’t know any more.

I have nothing left to prove.

•Climbed the proverbial career mountain

•Kids are all adults; responsible, educated, paying tax, adding societal value, starting their own families, getting married, pursuing their own dream, no longer in need of the self-appointed disciplinarian

•Dad passed away so the Freud argument weakens

My partner of 33+ years has endured my pursuit of rigor and extraordinary accomplishment with minimal peace.

I grew to believe…

Comfort breeds complacency.  Complacency breeds entitlement.

Entitlement breeds discord.

Discord breeds dissension.

Dissension breeds fracture.

Fracture breeds failure.

Shorten the equation and comfort is the beginning of failure.  Can I afford to get comfortable this far away from retirement?

Conversely, if I continue this hard ass behavior, who will want to spend time with me when me and Uncle Sam jointly declare I served my purpose and now it’s time for a 25 year break?

That all sounds suspiciously “easy”…

I’ll increase my efforts in search for middle ground and a “just right” epilogue.

Have a blessed weekend!