A reflection · September 23, 2025.
More often these days I find myself reflecting on the man I have been — rather than reflecting on the man I am or intend to be.
What lessons I had to learn, and learn again, and again, to get to this point.
The challenges. The losses. The triumphs. And even some laughs.
Twenty years of entrepreneurship. 46 years of lessons learned.
How I glorified my own journey, whatever turns and zigs and zags I took.
There is some old wisdom I first learned in timber country out in the Olympic Peninsula worth sharing.
It goes that as a youthful boy we tend to first grab branches and sticks and throw them onto the fire to keep it going.
As we age we grab an axe, and chop away at all those trees within our reach. We make a bigger and bigger fire — way bigger than the other guy.
But at some point we get to notice the pile of ashes. And in those ashes, all of our spent energy, hopes and dreams.
And then, and only then, after a period of grief for all that was — we set down the axe and return to the woodland and start replanting.
We gather the downed branches we find, and trim them into firewood stacked neatly for those that might need it.
We welcome this work, realizing that as a man we alone are granted purity in this work.
The fire may be glorious — but it is the ashes that make us men in the world. And on the day when the fire goes out we smile, blessed to continue planting and stacking wood for another day.
