First Steps

I recently turned 43.  That number doesn't mean anything to me. The day itself came and went with little acknowledgement.  The only thing that "happened", per se, was that my kids were upset that I had to work on my birthday.  I wasn't.  I've been working on my birthday (and most every holiday) since I was 16.  I even work Christmas Day every year.  Even prior to the passing of number 43, there has been a growing feeling inside of me. This feeling was telling me that there has to be more.  It manifests itself as an anxiety or restlessness.  I can't ever put my finger on it and label it.  It's just always there, in the background.
    I've come to understand the restlessness and even befriend it.  I think of what it would be like without it.  I don't imagine that a calm acceptance of my life is something to strive for.  And that is what I see as the alternative to this feeling.  Also, I don't imagine I will ever rid myself of this feeling.  An analogy might be the gasoline within a car.  With no gas, certainly, the car is calm and settled and, yes, present.  With gas, there is a certain rumbling, unease, energy.  With the pedal down and the car pointed in one direction or the other, the car seems obsessed with getting somewhere - a place that first exists in the future.  The gas is the potential within the car to take it as far as it will.  Okay, not a great analogy, but you get the point.
    At 43, my tank is full.  I'm ready to go.  I aspire to bigger, better and more.  I just don't know what any of that means.  What do I want?  I don't want a ton of money.  I don't want a better car.  I would like a bigger house, more for my kids and my wife than for me.  I have put what I want into a phrase that has little specific meaning.  It is all-encompassing and way too broad.  Still, it is my rallying cry and I measure any future opportunity or goal against it:

    I want to take over the world.

   I have worked for the same company for over 8 years.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  The company has never stayed the same for 8 years and neither has my job.  I work hand-in-hand with the owner and have since day one.  When I joined the company there was one restaurant with solid plans in place for a second.  In October, we'll open our sixth with a seventh right behind that in April or May of 2012.  For many years in the middle, this has qualified as taking over the world to me.  In my prior professional existence, I was a cog.  I did my job.  Sure, I had a nice title and dozens of people under my supervision, but I basically followed the rules and implemented some other guy's plan.
   In that respect, this new job gave me a new life.  It gave me my first real taste of autonomy.  Even as I passed every major concept, growth vehicle and change past the owner for approval, it was more mine than I'd ever know, professionally.  Autonomy, in many respects, is everything.  So now what?  Keep building restaurants?  Keep building the company?  Keep growing the brand?  To what end?
    I have conflicting views on this.  Part of me wants to jump and figure out the landing in mid-air.  In the past, before this job, I feared being fired so much that I quit every time.  Before I quit, I interviewed and took another job.  Usually the new job paid me a couple of thousand dollars more.  I became a pro at it.  Of course, that catches up to you pretty quick.  "Nice progression" on my resume turned into "jumping around quite a bit" very quickly.  I needed stability.  I needed to stick it out and accept being fired as a possibility.  So I promised myself, upon taking this job, that I would never quit.  I'd be fired.  So...success?
   When my thinking is at its clearest and my demons are sleeping I know that the right move for me is to leverage the position I have right now and branch out while doing it.  Branch out into things that also inspire me like writing and speaking and teaching.  So thats the plan any given day.  And it changes a lot.  This brings us back to the title.
    First steps.  These are the hardest, for sure.  Mine is to start a blog and begin communicating, daily, my thoughts on moving through this life.  43 might not be a milestone of any kind.  I don't recall seeing a birthday card in the aisle at Rite Aid that says "Hey, You're 43 today!  Still, it has moved me.  It has taken my nervous energy, my anxiety, and turned it from potential to actual.  Today my trek begins.  Out of my mind and into reality where it can be touched and read, beaten down and exalted.