IN THE RED ZONE

Red Sky in the Morning, Jamestown, NC

Red Zone

The red zone in American football fields is considered to be 20 yards before the opponent’s end zone and the goal of a winning drive.  As a lifelong football fan with the KC Chiefs, an easy analogy for me is to see life as a 100-yard field and the red zone as the culmination of life’s long journey before entering the promised end zone.  

I was introduced to the author Jack London many years ago via his novel, The Call of the Wild.  I’ve aways spent a lot of time out in the wild areas of nature hunting, fishing and hiking.  I even wander there searching for errant golf balls.  That book was his all-time best seller, but one of his more famous quotes comes from a lesser-known book, Burning Daylight.  And London’s literary executor, Irving Shepherd, quoted a Jack London Credo in an introduction to a 1956 collection of London stories:

“I would rather be ashes than dust!

I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot.

I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The function of man is to live, not to exist.

I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.

I shall use my time.”

Joseph Campbell in his seminal book The Hero with a Thousand Faces encourages us to follow our bliss in a “call to adventure”.  London also instructs us to follow the call of the wild and writes “Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest.”

I’ve traversed over those 80 yards pursuing the adventurous call to experience mortal life to the fullest on this planet.  And now I’m living in the red zone, having achieved the goal of transitioning from success to significance.  I’ve exchanged untold life hours for the monies needed to survive and grow in both mind and spirit.  Now I shall expend my life hours in pursuit of positive outcomes and the reasoned avoidance of those experiences now known to be unproductive and distasteful.  

I will no longer be governed by human created constraints such as routines, time and clocks whenever possible.  My days no longer have a price.  I shall use my time.