Thu 19th Jun 2008 02:04AM
There was a man reading the daily newspaper as he sat in a corner seat at the local coffee house. His brow furrowed as his dark brown eyes glazed over the days news, highlighting tragedy and woe with each paragraph. A taste of sadness swept through him along with his swig of java as he wondered what it was all for. What is life? Why are people brought here to bear witness to and be so strongly affected by pain, hateful people and lies? Slowly his thoughts turned inward, and he mused over his own relationship with himself. Why would a man in his mid forties be so preoccupied with his professional life? He realized with a twinge of regret that he had been living and breathing the lie that he was his work for the past twelve years.
Corporate real estate management had seemed like the perfect career choice for him. He was intelligent, well respected at University and he had a well honed sense of organization, charm and seemingly unending energy to complete his projects with verve. As the years went racing past him, a marriage blossomed and crumbled before him, and his sense of style gave way to convenience, he began to question what was truly the most important thing that life had to offer him. He had watched the news every night as he had always done, as his father had done. Throughout his life he had absorbed the suffering and devastation of many natural disasters as the pictures played across the screen. He had lost friends and loved ones to car accidents and disease. He had even known a woman who had been found murdered some years back. Through all of this pain, his career in corporate real estate management had grounded him. His work had given him an identity to plug into. His work had defined the parameters of his life, paid his mortgage and included him in a social network of other professionals that he felt could identify with him and his responsibilities. Indeed, corporate real estate management was a highly respected career, and one he chose with some deliberation all those years ago. Still, he could not shake the tiny voice of understanding that life carried with it the promise of something much more vast and meaningful. There simply had to be more to know.
At this stage of his life he had come to the realization that he was not simply a professional business man in corporate real estate management. He was yearning to know himself deeper, beginning to identify less and less with the roles he played every day at the office, with friends, even family. As he stared off in the direction of the ceiling of the coffee shop, he began to feel a comforting movement in his chest. It was a warmth that began first as a flutter, but gradually expanded. It was not an actual burning sensation. It was emotional in nature, though he could feel the shift. Perhaps for the very first time in his life, on that cloudy grey morning in a small cafe, corporate real estate management became less of a description of who he was and more of an adjective of what kinds of things he had been choosing to do with his time. In a moment of personal wisdom, this previously embittered man allowed himself to open, just a fraction, to the truth of the beingness of living. He sat in silence. His mind grew still as his labels fell away. The self imposed label of corporate real estate management fell to the wayside like a clay mask, as did the labels of ex husband, son and man. His soul spoke to him as his chest filled with love, radiant in the understanding that it is not what we do in our lives that matters, but it is the intention and grace with which we do them that remains precious. He realized that he was truth, he understood that he was love. For just a moment, he knew what it was all about.
The original article is located at: Real Estate Careers Do Not Define Us