Man without a mission

All my life I have done well when I had a clear task in front of me. My friends used to laugh at me and call me 'man with a mission'. I liked the title. I was always into something, whether it was rebuilding an old Harley or remodeling a house. I function well when there is a destination in front of me. When I have that vision, I can get pretty obsessive about focusing all of who I am on that project. My favorite hobby in the past has been rebuilding old motorcycles. I remember I bought a Sportster that was supposed to be a complete basket case. The guy I bought it from said everything was there. He had done the heads and values and all I had to do was put it together.

I couldn't sleep for a week. I would get off work (or find an excuse to get off early) and work until midnight, never stopping for dinner of needed potty stops. Covered in grease and grinning from ear to ear, I would lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, unable to shut off the momentum. Sometimes I would stop trying to fight it and just go back out to the garage until I couldn't stay awake anymore, then collapse on the couch.

All I could think about was the bike. For a week I didn't do anything but function as a severe man with a mission. It was all I could talk about, think about, or dream about. I wanted to spend every free moment building it. And believe it or not, I got it all built and had one piece left over. It looked like junk, so I threw it away, not knowing where it would go. I also had an uncovered hole on the side of the engine, but I couldn't make any sense of it, and I couldn't connect it with the left over piece.

I ran to the store and bought a battery and tried to start the bike. It turned over! I had actually gotten all the parts in the right places. Within 5 minutes I had it running. I thought the top of my head would fall off from grinning so big. I was beyond ecstatic! I painted the sheet metal parts and in two days took it for its maiden voyage. It ran like it just came out of the shop. It was perfect. And then I got depressed.

Suddenly I was a man without a mission. I didn't know what to do with myself. Life was dull and I felt unmotivated to do much of anything. I would look at the bike all completed in the garage and wish I could be back putting it all together, figuring out how the thing worked, facing the challenge of the creator of the bike's genius. I wanted to fix it more and solve more problems. Riding was fun, but the real joy was the synergy of creating something alive out of a box of parts.

As I look back on my manic motorcycle episode, I see being a man with a mission as something I thrive on. I wonder how many other men are the same way? Give us a clear vision and we know what our mission is. Let us walk ourselves into the same old rut every day and after very long we begin to fade. No vision, no passion, no purpose. We go through the motions, but there isn't much of a pulse.

I want to talk to some men who are willing to get their pulse back. I want to run the race with some guys who are ready to have their worlds shaken up a little, who want to rebuild a Harley, who are ready to embrace the passion in their heart. All the pieces are there. They just need someone to help them put it all together.

That left over piece was a breather. It let air in and out of the crankcase, and after I figured that out and fished it out of the trash, it completed the bike. Of course, being the goofball that I was (and still am), I sold the Sportster for twice what I paid for it and started another project right away.