Tuesday, November 21, 2023

I’ve been thinking about this time of year, autumn. My thoughts drift between thinking of the seasons literally, and conjuring the notion of fall, figuratively.

I love autumn, and maybe I always have. As a kid, it meant going back to school. Fall also meant that my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, was right around the corner.

In later years, fall also meant slowing down a bit to enjoy the changing of the leaves. In the title business, it came to mean convention season, which is always great to see everyone out and about.

When living in Texas, it signaled that it was finally safe to go outdoors without risk of spontaneous human combustion.  And now that I live at what I affectionately refer to as The North Pole, fall signals it’s time to soak up the last bits of outdoor time before we hunker down indoors until late March.

For certain, autumn signals the beginning of holiday plans and the beginning of Q4 at work. Fall also tugs at us to reflect on what came before it while at the same time, it beckons us to imagine what’s coming next.

There’s a duality to fall that I’ve always found comforting.

Many of us are in the autumn of our careers, too. We are nowhere close to counting down weeks or months to retirement, yet we are also far away from the rough and tumble scramble and vigor of our springtime youth.

We aren’t entirely ready to plow our fields under and let them rest. Rather, we have a rich bounty that we’ve planted, tended, fussed over and harvested. We have a quiet confidence that our efforts were worth the reward.

It’s from this place that some amazing questions can be asked and answered. What have you accomplished that you never dreamed possible? Which truly important things remain undone, and how can you make sure to accomplish them? What have we wasted our time, attention, or energy on that no longer serves us well? With the awareness that comes from standing at this vista, where do you want to go next?

If you take a few minutes to think from this perspective, you’ll probably find yourself asking how you want to give back. What will be the measure of your life well lived?  And how soon can you get to work on that?

If you’ve planted and sown, tended and strove, harvested and reflected, I hope you’ll share your bounty in ways that make you know it was all worthwhile.

Until next time,

Mary Schuster
Chief Knowledge Officer
October Research, LLC