Erik with a K

I have this "work friend", Erik with a K. (Eww, that makes me sound like a callgirl or something, but we've always been only friends, both hands on the table.) I told him I might tell him where my blog is and he made a joke about how I could write about this jerk I know who moved to Cleveland and left all his friends high & dry. Well, we do miss him....jerk.... the odd thing is that I talk to him now via IM more than I did when he was here.

He's got a blog too ( http://tearsofaclone.blogspot.com ) and I'm sure it's going to get funnier every day. But every once in a while he will write something like this:

I think it means that we, and by we I mean me, can't turn our lives upside down and suddenly devote ourselves to another calling, no matter how noble and right the cause. We must strive simply to live a little better each day, by being nicer to complete strangers who might not be reciprocating that to us, by finding a small thing to do now and then to help someone out, by knowing that there will be opportunities for us to make selfless decisions and help others, as long as we recognize them.

For some, like my aunt, must've known early on in life that she had the conviction and capacity to devote her life to her god. And those people are truly doing a job that is almost inconceivable to me, almost out of my realm of comprehension. But that's ok. I don't need to squeeze myself into a mold I wasn't made for. I'm one of the worker drones, just like most of you, and if we take the time to really think about what life is, and what our role in it can be, then life seems a whole lot more like the grand opportunity it really is, rather than the unwanted burden we sometimes talk ourselves into. Maybe a little more empathy in this world, and a little more recognition of the reality of our own mortality will do us all good.

This was pretty helpful to me today, because a few minutes after I read it I had to refrain from strangling a co-worker I simply can NOT get along with. I was in such a harmonious place before that guy walked in my office... good thing, otherwise I'd be in a cell now, getting fingerprinted and deloused.

At any rate, it's still close enough to New Year's day that this fits into my theme of examining your life and your resolutions. Cheers!