Unless you have been living under a rock, you have watched or listened to Lin- Manuel Miranda’s brilliant smash hit Hamilton. In the musical, Alexander Hamilton is in the midst of a personal crisis when he belts out the tune Hurricane. 

In the eye of the hurricane

  There is quiet

For just a moment

A yellow sky

The eye of the hurricane is described as the center of the storm. The zone of calm behaves differently over land and water. However, one fact remains, this respite from raging winds and rain can only be found in the center of the surrounding devastation and chaos. Like Hamilton, we are in the eye of the hurricane. We desperately want to free ourselves from this position because no movement feels like death. The opposite is true. We are all in the cleft of a rock being protected and looked after in the midst of the planet pivoting towards an unknown future. 

The challenge we all face today can be wrapped up in one simple word, control. 2020 is stripping away the façade and showing us who is behind the curtain. It’s like someone asked us to get on the treadmill with these simple instructions; I’ll tell you when to stop. We would prefer someone to tell us you are going to run 10 miles, 100 miles, 1000 miles… anything. We need to know because we only trust our own ability to paddle ourselves out of the storm. I’m here to say that you are in the eye of the hurricane. The safest place for you and your family is exactly where you are. The winds are raging outside this eye and we must look around and trust that this tempest has purpose. I don’t pretend to know why all the events of today are going on. But I do know that we will one day look back and realize that it was all for something greater than our selves. 

This is never going to end! These words have crossed my mind several times in 2020. What if? What then? Words of doubt eventually lead to anxiety. Accepting the fact that you are not in control quickly puts anxious thoughts into perspective. 

Recently, my family was fortunate enough to take an RV trip. As we pushed off from Orange County, I felt reasonably confident we would get to all our destinations on time and intact. Besides the mountain of snacks and luggage, we packed our 5 kids and for good measure, my sister and brother in law saddled up for the exploration. Yes, you read that right, we had 9 people in an RV headed East in hopes of enjoying a perfectly flawless summer vacation. What could possibly go wrong?

In life, we make plans that, looking back, were entirely naive and maybe even delusional. Yet, we make them because we are optimistic and have a romantic notion about the winding road ahead. Somewhere along this twisted path we become control freaks and do everything in our power to drive in a straight line when the road clearly calls for power steering. 

There we were having a blast and enjoying the scenery when an errant golf ball aggressively searched out and destroyed our windshield. This event was not in our bullet-point plans but proved to be a chance to learn how to patch up glass with duct tape and nail polish. We had another learning opportunity on the return trip when both back tires on the left side of the RV blew at 70 mph. Is this the result of the 2020 curse pursuing us as we drive or is this simply the way life goes? We make plans and we assume we are in control of them. Turns out we are not, and we never were. 

Here’s the upside, the movies we watch and the books we read are not about people who lived a predictable and always favorable life. No, we are most deeply interested and invested in those who overcame. Those who were beat up and told they would never amount to much yet persevered. The stories my kids will tell of this fabled voyage will not be about the campsites we made it to on time, rather they will tell THEIR kids about the time dad was forced to use nail polish to hold our family adventure together.  

Some time ago, disposable cameras were all the rage. They were fun, primarily because there was a bit of suspense baked into the outcome. One would never quite know if they captured the right photo until weeks later when the camera roll was dropped off and then picked up at a tiny house in the middle of some random shopping center. Nowadays, everything is digital and quick. We are able to evaluate, edit, and retake a photo that may not quite have left the impression we had hoped to remember. 

For a long time, disposable razors, sandwich bags, and other one-time use products were considered both convenient and cheap. Now we know more about the effects of these products and have made a giant swing back to carrying eco-friendly jugs of water, shopping bags made of burlap, and paper straws. I’m all for long term sustainable practices because it’s part of stewarding and protecting what we have been given. Personally, I prefer to simply skip the straw and not have to deal with the paper ones, but I appreciate the effort people are making. For most of us it takes time to look beyond the now and ultimately understand the importance of appreciating the original. 

Disposable cheapens the product and ultimately debases the intrinsic value of that in which it is attached to. You may have recently been laid off and left feeling like a juice box casually thrown to the wayside. Over the course of time life has a way of beating you down to a point that you feel disposable.  You spent years working and now what? Some executives made a business decision that has now affected your whole life and most likely your outlook and personal self-worth. 

I’m here to tell you that you are not disposable! You cannot be made by the thousands and there will never be someone quite like you. Situations don’t dictate who you are they provide opportunities for who you are going to be. The reality is that all those tiny houses that used to develop film are gone. Change is inevitable, change is good and sometimes change that is forced upon us is life’s way of getting you back on the road you were initially intended to walk.

On the road again
Goin’ places that I’ve never been
Seein’ things that I may never see again
And I can’t wait to get on the road again

Willie Nelson’s words spark the imagination. They take us to a place of daydreaming and embracing the possibilities of new frontiers. Interesting to look back and realize we have recently been places we have never been and seen things we may never see again. It doesn’t feel so romantic when we look back as much as when we think of the possibilities ahead of us. 

Over the past several months I have encouraged everyone to appreciate how you arrived where you are today. Hindsight can be very uplifting when one looks at all the obstacles and hurdles we have made it up and over. We may have stumbled and skinned our knees, but we are here. Today, I want to do the opposite. Let’s dream of that open road again! 

Ancient wisdom says that hope deferred makes a heart grow sick. Many of us are heart sick due to the fact that it feels we are in a never-ending news cycle of deeply disturbing information. If you stare at the spin cycle long enough the dizzying effects can become nauseating apathy. This apathy then develops into depression and self-loathing. 

Let’s take a virtual Dramamine and set our sights on the future. The reality is we don’t know what is next. That is the beauty of Willie’s words. We will soon be goin’ places we have never been. I’m with you, I hope these places are filled with health, kindness, understanding, and gratitude. Willie finishes his legendary track with these words:

And our way is on the road again
I just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin’ music with my friends
And I can’t wait to get on the road again, break free
And I can’t wait to get on the road again

Refill your tank, break free of doubt and let’s look forward to the open frontier that is our life. 

How many times have you said in the past few months, I can’t wait until we get back to normal? I hear that phrase uttered every day as an attempt to explain our frustration with the thought of losing something we had. I get it. I want things to return to normal as much as anybody. Well, that’s not entirely true, I only want things to return that I liked. Things that I enjoyed, not hard or inconvenient stuff. Moreover, I want things to stay the way they are in quarantine.  Well, only the parts that include comfort and time with the family. Ultimately, we want to walk through life like we are in line at a Chipotle. We are quietly saying the words, I will have a little of that, some of those, medium spice, no tortilla, and a bag of chips to go, please.

Here’s the hard truth, change is good. Even when it’s painful it is good. Difficult times highlight the need for transformation in a way that is almost alarming. 2020 has proven to be a historic year filled with gut-wrenching and much needed but painful self-examination. The reality is that most of us thought we were in control six months ago. It’s like buying a home in Orange County in 1965 for $50,000 and having it appraised for $1,000,000 forty-five years later and calling yourself a genius. If you were a genius, you would have bought two. Most of us have been blessed to make some good decisions that have made us look way smarter than we actually are. We simply happened to be in the right place at the right time. 

As your Chief Encouragement Officer, it is my sacred duty to proclaim that you are at the right place at the right time today! Today may look more daunting than you would have imagined but it’s the perfect time for you to be alive. Forty-five years from today your older self will look back and say wow what an incredible change agent 2020 really was. We needed 2020 to shake off the scales of unwarranted pride and course correct our passionate pursuit of normal.

Think about it, as a nation we are dealing with the effects of a global pandemic, 30 million people out of work, the stock market behaving like a cork in the ocean, no school, no sports, Olympics canceled and we have seen racial injustice put correctly right to the front of the line in conversation. We are being forced to deal with 100 years of challenges in a six-month time frame. It reminds me of a semester summer school class that is crammed into the month of July. What does all this opportunity for change mean? 

It means that we are not returning to normal. I for one, say good! Normal has never produced anything of value. It feels like life just offered us a mulligan. You may have hit your golf ball out of bounds for the past 30 years but 2020 is standing there with a new ball in hand and offering you the opportunity to tee it up again. So here we are given a fresh scorecard with a new outlook for the future. Let’s bond together and make sure we don’t return to normal. Change is needed, change was needed, and as soon as we feel like we have got it down again be prepared for more change.