Success rarely comes at home

I read the recent news that while our economy grew, it grew only by 1%. And that growth only came from exports due to our weak dollar.

It made me think of the phrase Go west, young man. Only now it's Go overseas, small business. Right now, that's where success lays. Not at home.

You Can Never Go Home Again. Thomas Wolfe  wrote that you can never go home again. Or maybe it's painful, if you do. Maybe I'm missing NC, my home, a bit these days. That's why a post about economic growth from exports leads me to that book and Look Homeward, Angel. Both are novels about travels and change, success and fresh eyes it brings that sees the home that was, maybe and now  will never be there again. Nor will I, you, be the same person even if the building itself remains. 

I know success for me has never come from home. Using any basis for the definition of home,  geographic or social or company or familial, my success (and happiness) has never come from home.

It's come from change, from disruption, from upheaval. The old home is torn down, destroyed. And the hard work to build the foundation for the next period of success starts again. (It's the economic version of the artist's dark night of the soul...Hey, I AM a former art major.)

Over time, I look back through coke-bottle lenses of sentimentality on the fun, the craziness, the challenges, the camaraderie of those times at that home. And I forget that...that home doesn't exist any more. I don't exist any more. I'm not the same person. Neither are the others. Neither is the situation.

And the heavy summer air of a NC afternoon...sweet with memories of naps and adventures, doesn't exist now...except for the naps, maybe.

And my success, I think ours as a nation, doesn't rest in the past. It's in the future. It's in the hard work we're doing now to build the foundation for the next period of success. And while it's inevitable we reminisce about the past, remembering it grander than it was, and it's understandable to be unsettled with the disruptions and destructions around us in our homes, those homes are gone now. We can never go home. The we that lived in 'em are gone. We're different, stronger, wiser, smarter, tougher. A little balder. We can never go home again. And we wouldn't want to, anyway. Look homeward, just don't linger. The future's where we're headed.