retreating

in a little over an hour, i will be participating in a staff retreat for one of the teams that reports to me. my role will be to lead off the retreat with a three hour discussion of my developing vision of how that team and the organizational function they support will evolve over the next few years. i hope that the discussion is informative, energizing and inspirational. with those last two points, i think that hope applies as much to me as to the members of the team.

over the past 24 hours, i've been thinking of retreating in another form as related to two different situations in my life. as those who came by the blog yesterday observed, my work day was not going exactly as i generally like it to progress. actually progress or rather the seeming lack thereof was the focus of much of my frustration over the course of day. it felt as if i was one of a small minority that seemed to be supportive of  and committed to our strategic priorities and goals. i started to wonder if maybe the time was coming to pack it in here.

i have not been happy in my life outside of work (if a life is what it could be called), and i'm starting to question if no matter how hard i and others work we are ever going to be able to accomplish what we've planned and hoped to achieve. it doesn't seem as if there are many necessarily cheering on our efforts or desiring to actively contribute their own. yesterday, retreating definitely felt like a good option as i headed home from a long day.

this morning, i awoke, and as i was getting ready, i thought about how it had been a few days since i had chatted online with s.r. this led to my contemplating about the course of our friendship, and how it had not been developing in the manner i had hoped or anticipated. even with the distance, i thought maybe we would get to hang out in person every four to six weeks. well, it's been about three times that since we last saw one another with no prospects of an in-person visit in sight. i certainly have been willing and have offered to travel to him, but i can see that's not an option he wants to engage. and so again, as it has a few times over the time we've known each other, the idea of making a hasty retreat came to mind.

i think both of these situations have the same dynamics. each has involved an investment of significant amounts of trust and effort with the hope that they would lead to a desired outcome. each has had situations emerge that have caused me to doubt whether those investments have been wise ones. and so the question presents of whether continuing forward and giving my full self to these specific areas of work and friendship are really in my best interest.

to be honest, my finding the right resolution is certainly not helped by the fatigue that has set in from all of the hours of planning, meeting, discussing in the case of work and battling fears and insecurities in the case of s.r. i don't even know if i have much left to give anyway.

who knows? maybe it's not these particular situations that i should be retreating from at all. maybe it's just life in general. hmm, after letting all of this out, being inspirational is going to be more of a challenge than i thought.