I recently returned from my company's bi-annual, two-day, agency-wide meeting in San Jose (more hyphenated words, anyone?), which -- in addition to actual work -- involves a lot of drinking and, consequently, not a lot of sleeping. So you'll have to excuse me if I sound a little off my rocker.
Anyway, at this meeting, we participated in a leadership activity that consisted of creating a "Leadership Map" with paints, markers and magazine pages. For me, this was AWESOME because it really brought me back to my high school days of making countless magazine collages for myself and my best friend, which we would then slide into the front of our binders. Not sure if this is normal, but we thought it was super cool and fun at the time. But I digress... So on this Leadership Map, we had to fill in four quadrants: What is Calling Me? (where do I want to go in life), What is My Growth Plan? (how do I get there), What Energizes Me? and What Strengths Do I Bring To the Table? After we had completed our maps, we had to share them with the rest of the company, talking about what each image represented.
So I set out browsing magazines, clipping out pictures of politicians (to represent my leadership skills and interest in politics), important-looking women execs (to represent my desire to succeed in my career), exotic locations (to represent my love of travel) and Justin Timberlake (he's hot -- had to squeeze him in there somehow). When it came time to share our creations with the group, I was surprised to find that every woman in the company had included something about getting married or continuing to build the marriage they already have -- their What's Calling Me section was full of images of happy couples, women in wedding dresses and the like. And not once did my map ever even hint at the possibility of "settling down" or "finding love."
It's not that I don't want to do/find those things, but -- and I can honestly say this -- the thought of including something like that never ever even crossed my mind. And for the two days since, I've been wondering why. Is it because I focused on my goals/hopes/dreams in terms of my professional, not personal, life? (This isn't entirely true, because I included other personal goals such as travel, buying a house, moving to a large city...) Is it because I was thinking more in the short term than the long term? Because I was trying to impress the big guns with my drive to succeed?
I still have no idea why, when I think of what I want to be in the future, a Mrs. isn't included anywhere on the list. I do think I want to get married, but I'll be the first to admit that it isn't as high on my list of wants as it might be on some others'. Maybe that's it. Maybe I feel like I have too much I still want to do with my independence before I settle down. Maybe I'm scared of letting a relationship define who I am before I figure out who I am on my own.
Maybe...maybe...maybe... Just add it to my long list of self-reflection points, issues and other emotional crap I'm fully intending on sorting through some day.
