Power

In my high school physics class (you know, the one with the greasy-potato-chips-on-the-brown-paper-sack experiment), power was defined as the ability to do work. I was always charmed by that imprecise definition just as I was by the Euclidean definition of a point: a point is that which has no part.

I'm not just spouting my high school education to impress. The reason I'm talking about power and work is because I had begun to doubt my abilities. It's been years since I felt good about my contribution to my workplace. After my brief, horrible tenure at that newspaper, I thought that I might have devolved into a half-assed working person. In my perspective and history, there's not much worse.

There are stories out there of my past ability to do tremendous amounts of work. Okay, there's mostly stories that I tell but they're more or less real. At one working establishment, it was not unusual for a few folks to gather around to watch me work. They decided that it would be counterproductive to pitch in.

While I'm not old, I'm not young. Some of you out there might be feeling mortal too. Not a bad thing, just a spur to figure out the fine points of living well. But the nagging pattern of disengagement in my recent career was not the kind of spur I expected.

Well, this might be anti-climactic. But I'm alright. I've spent time scraping away a lot of personal rust, adding a few skills and figuring out how to find a job that I'd like. Not a surprise that my work energy is good, my focus keeps getting sharper and I've got some fire back. It feels good, being back in the mix, having the feeling that things matter. Now that's power.