I read these lines by David Whyte (a poet who does a lot of work in organisations) every so often to reconnect myself to what is important.

Sometime ago at AT&T I found myself working with a roomful of particularly thoughtful managers. We were looking at the way human beings find it necessary to sacrifice their own sacred desires and personal visions on the altar of work and success. Out of this a woman wrote the following lines. She read them slowly from the back of the room, unaware how stricken we all were by the silence she created.

Ten years ago...

I turned my face for a moment

and it became my life.

We have patience for everything but what is most important to us. We look at the life of our own most central imaginings and see it beckon. For the most part we have not the courage to follow it, but we do not have the courage to leave it. We turn our face for a moment and tell ourselves we will be sure to get back to it. When we look again ten years have passed and we wonder what in God's name happened to us.

I turned my face for a moment

and it became my life.

From The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul at Work by David Whyte, publ The Work Foundation, 1994, pages 196/7.