I’m Looking for Signs of Life

In people and places carrying more possibility than they can currently see.

I'm looking for signs of life.

Not where most people look.

I'm looking for signs of life where others have stopped looking.

In people and places that have stopped believing much can change.

Sometimes signs are buried beneath disappointment, fear, criticism, defeat or regret.

Sometimes people mistake those experiences for the end of the story. A mandate to sit down and scale back.

But they're not. Signs of life don't necessarily look like success or confidence.

More often they look like courage.

Through bad bosses and competitive coworkers.

Mistakes. Layoffs and unfair criticism.

The stories we tell ourselves about who we should have been by now or what we should have accomplished.

Signs still break through.

The moment someone asks for an opportunity they don't feel fully qualified for.

The moment they allow themselves to seek a future different from the present.

The moment they stop treating the past as a verdict.

Those are signs of life.

The first hint that we've mistaken a chapter for a conclusion.