Ladder Climbing Days Are Over

My ladder-climbing days are over. Not literally...figuratively. I can still climb a ladder to get on the roof if I want to...although I need some coaxing and coaching to climb down. The climb up is always easy...the climb down scares me. But I'm not scared of getting off the figurative ladder right where I am. There was a time when I was ambitious...when I wanted to get to the top of my profession...when where I was just wasn't good enough for me...or maybe satisfying is a better word. I've never considered myself particularly successful. Diligent...yes. Driven to succeed...yes. Hard working...yes. But the abstract idea of success has been elusive. Four college degrees...count them...4...including a Ph.D which still sits rolled up somewhere with a little coffee stain at the top. By some standards, that's successful...and good for those who have earned them, because they don't come cheap and they don't come easy. I think, in the back of my mind I thought that more education, a higher position...dare I say it...more stuff would make me feel like I had arrived. Where, I don't know. But the trip up was exhausting and not worth the sacrifice. And I still wasn't satisfied with myself. Gradually, over the course of a few months, after I have "simplified" as a friend calls it, after I have examined my life closely and found myself lacking in areas painful to acknowledge, I'm working on those areas more than the climb to the top. I'm working on peace, serenity,smiling, being grateful to God for the untold blessings He has given me and which I don't deserve, patience, charity, love, laughter...and a sweeter spirit. I have come to believe I have arrived at the key to my purpose and it has nothing to do with rungs on a figurative ladder. I don't want to be at the top of my profession...but I do want to be the best I can be in my profession. I don't want to posture for recognition...fame or fortune...the fame and fortune thing is a joke because I am in education...I don't want to jockey for position or whatever "up the ladder" is. I am finished climbing ladders. The view is great from right here.