Writing Challenge - Day 3

Today is going to be a somewhat full one culminating in bluegrass, tasty pig parts and high-class hooch!  A friend of mine scored us comp tickets to Washington City Paper's 4th Annual Bacon & Bourbon Whiskey Festival, and I'm pretty doubtful that I'll be in a mood to sit down and write after that.  So it's time to make this experiment at least a 3-day streak!

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Over the past few months I've been listening to a podcast, Art of Charm, that has captured my attention for its insights and interviews with intelligent and thoughtful guests.  Not all of the episodes are mind-blowing, but more than occasionally they're worth listening to a couple of times.  Episode 556 with Philip McKernan was one of the more thought-provoking episodes.  McKernan's work is "uncovering people’s hidden and dormant gifts that have the ability to affect others".

One of the concepts addressed in this episode was the notion that in our efforts to succeed in life, business, etc, we can wind up running from the things we don't want and as a result be also inadvertently moving farther from what we do want.  An example McKernan gave was growing up poor and expending tons of energy escaping from and continuing to run from poverty, only to find that you're actually getting further away from helping to end the poverty from which you came and others remain.

That led me to really think about what my answer would be to the question, "What are you running from?"  This is a question that I'm still mulling over, but one thing clearly comes to mind: situations/people that demand surrender of autonomy.  This one definitely seems to fit.  I can see how running from this can seem to be at odds with attaining the greater senses of trust, connection, belonging, and teamwork that I also seek.

I suspect that thoughts down this sort of line will continue to occupy brain space into the not too distant future.  Maybe something will even come out of it!