A Full Life

When I was younger and my Dad was travelling internationally quite often, I talked to him one day about something new I wanted to try. I don't remember what it was, nor do I remember whether I actually ever did what it was I was contemplating at the time. My Dad told me that if we ended up with one thing about which we are passionate outside of work and family and church that we are lucky, and something to the effect that there would come a time in my life when I would really only be able to have one hobby because of some of the demands which would be placed on me.

These last two weeks during my training at the Law Enforcement Academy, we have had several classes called Healthy Lifestyles. During those classes and others, we have had lots of discussions about the need for variety in our lives. The training is, of course, geared toward police officers, so they spend a lot of time talking about how cops need to have friends who are not cops, need to spend time in leisure activities which have nothing to do with paramilitary tactics (paintball/airsoft wargames), martial arts, firearms, et cetera.

I think the principle applies to all of us. I have been graduated about five weeks now, and I am gaining a modicum of perspective on just how warped three years of hanging out with law students and just about no one else has made me. In the last month I have been running, working out, gardening, SCUBA diving, playing with my kids, working on the truck, decorating and spending a little more time with my wife, all things which I did not do often or at all during law school.

Even my dad, who has had the luxury of staying on the same continent for more than a few weeks at a time now, has rekindled his interests in motorcycles, SCUBA and a few others, in addition to fishing, which has always been his passion. 

I find that for the first time in my life, I am really starting to look for new and different things with which to fill my life.  I have tried some new things which I love (SCUBA) and some new things about which I am ambivalent (golf) and become interested in some things I never really got attached to when I was younger (hunting).  Jenny and I have been able to spend time together with more and different people in this last year than during any other in our marriage.  

I understand where my Dad was coming from-- time constraints can and really do impinge on the ability to have more than one passion.  For now, though, I am grateful to be at a point in my life where there is a little running, a little camping, a little diving, and a little time spent with several different friends.  My life is full of new experiences right now, and I am happy with that.