This is the headline of  a story included in a book I’m reading at the moment.

It is Mitch Albom’s newest book, Have a Little Faith.  One of my core team members was kind enough to give me the book for Christmas at our recent Holiday dinner.  I like Mitch Albom’s work (he authored the best-seller Tuesdays with Morrie, among other books).

Albom provides thought-provoking content that I find well worth my time.  I got some great reminders and insights from Tuesdays with Morrie, and so far I’m getting good stuff from this book too.  This particular story was recounted by Mitch’s Rabbi in 1975 in a sermon, which obviously had enough impact that Mitch chose to include it in this book.  I really liked the story’s message too.

Enough context now.  Here it is:

“A man seeks employment on a farm.  He hands his letter of recommendation to his new employer.  It reads simply, `He sleeps in a storm.’

The owner is desperate for help, so he hires the man.

Several week pass, and suddenly, in the middle of the night, a powerful storm rips through the valley.

Awakened by the swirling rain and howling wind, the owner leaps out of bed.  He calls for his new hired hand, but the man is sleeping soundly.

So he dashes off to the barn.  He sees, to his amazement, that the animals are secure with plenty of feed.  He runs out to the field. He sees the bales of wheat have been bound and are wrapped in tarpaulins.  He races to the silo.  The doors are latched, and the grain is dry.

And then he understands.  `He sleeps in a storm.’

My friends, if we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love and behave in line with our [beliefs], our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business.  Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight.  We will never wallow in the agony of `I could have, I should have.’  We can sleep in a storm.

And when it’s time, our good-byes will be complete.”

After a year like the one I’ve just lived through – full of big challenges, high highs and low lows, big transitions, and more than my share of stress – this story really resonates with me.  But really, it’s a good way to live anytime.

May we all manage our lives well enough to sleep in a storm.

OK, so we’re finally actually LIVING IN our new home.  Yeeehahhhh!!

It feels a lot better than the sense of living nowhere during the interim.  There’s still plenty of work to do and we’ve got friends coming over Friday for a Christmas gathering plus coming from out of town for Christmas and New Years, arriving in 2 weeks and staying for 2 weeks, but it’s all good (after all, WE invited them).

For me, having friends and family over is an important part of converting a house into a home, so I really don’t mind the work that comes with it.  As usual, it comes down to balance and making sure there’s also time for just me, and for just my wife and I.  And there is.

It’s finally starting to feel like I can settle into this new phase in my life.  I’m not talking about physically settling into the home – unpacking everything, buying new furniture, handling repairs and other things (although that’s part of it) – I’m talking about settling into all the changes that come with the new home:

• We’re in a new neighbourhood that doesn’t contain all the same charms and other benefits of the neighbourhood we used to live in (e.g. location vis-a-vis downtown, variety and proximity of the shops, etc), and that in itself is a big shift.
• We’re also living in a house that is different from the kind of house I envisioned myself in next, although that’s turning out to be fine.
• We’re making other changes to how we run our lives, and this has an effect.
• I’ve also made changes to my working arrangements and office space in the city.

It all adds up to significant and important change.  There are other life changes happening as well – positive, but significant.

What does all of this mean?  It means the past 4-6 weeks have felt pretty tumultuous.  The experience has felt great, terrible, easy, difficult, stressful, peaceful, exciting, crazy-making, fun, annoying, and a number of other things I can’t think of at this moment.  It just depended when you asked me.

The key has been to maintain perspective through it all.

Unfortunately I wasn’t always successful at doing that, but I adopted a couple of practices to help me. One was keeping in touch with good friends and talking to them about it; another was journaling about it when my mind was really racing; another was talking to my business/life coach about it; yet another was just putting it all aside from time to time and just going out for a nice evening with my wife or a friend.

Here’s wishing you perspective and balance through life’s changes.