lightbulb

i’ve recently figured something out about myself. it was an important realization in that it has quite an effect on how i accomplish things in my life. the realization is this:

i am not a ‘visionary’.

maybe i would be called an ‘implementer’ or a ‘creative problem solver’. the thing is, i need something to implement or solve. i can always make things work, but i need a ‘thing’ to ‘make work’. if you tell me to do something i’ll do it better than about anyone you know. tell me to find something to do and i’m completely lost. if you gave me paint and canvas and told me to make something wintry to put on the wall i’m pretty sure you would be disappointed with what i made. if you gave me a string of fairy lights, put me in an empty room with no tacks or tape and told me to hang them they would be up and lit when you came beck. does this make sense?

the past 5 years have been somewhat frustrating for me. we started a church with clear goals of positively impacting our community. with everything conceptual i have had a really hard time finding ways to get involved in the process of creating what needs to be foundational to building the programs that help this community. i love my church and the vision we all work toward, but i’ve felt almost like something was wrong with me that i wasn’t able to make things happen like i felt i should. it’s usually that i just don’t know where to start. being involved with the DHOP, on the other hand, has been so simple. i know what i need to do and how to do it. i can see clearly and easily if something can be made better, because it’s already in place.

the trick is to see this extreme goal orientation as a good thing, rather than continuing to let it frustrate me. thank God there were pioneers who came out west with no clear goal but to get here and see what happened. i’m here today because they did. but once they got here they needed people like me to help them figure out things like how to make their homes more watertight against the torrential pacific northwest rain, or how to find ways to patch clothes with no extra fabric and no needles.

i need to be around visionaries, pioneers and forerunners so i don’t get so bogged down in the details i forget the big picture. the visionaries, pioneers and forerunners need people like me around so they don’t get so lost in the big picture that they forget to tie it together. i’m interested to see how this realization will help me moving forward with my own goals. hmmm...