Have you heard about your dash? As in, How’s your dash going? In this instance, your dash represents the mark on your tombstone that separates your date of birth from your date of death. In other words, it represents your life, the part during your existence in which you lived on earth.
And while it’s weird to consider, I have always found the “dash” reference to be a bit monotone and sedentary. It just doesn’t suggest life to me or all the events: crazy, sullen, happy, or sad, that occur during one’s lifetime. And as humans, we sometimes, tend to concentrate on someone else’s dash more than our own. The whole splinter in your neighbor’s eye, mote in your own eye thing.
For me, when I hear “how’s your dash?” I think of a different dash…, I think of the white dashes or lane lines in the road that speed past me as I am driving or racing from one destination to another – usually just trying to get home. They can be counted; they can be measured. They delineate me from others. They keep me in my lane and guide me down the road. Sometimes, that road gets twisted, curved, narrow or steep but those dashes hopefully keep me in place, and yet they are always moving – not like the dash on a tombstone.
Your dash should not be inactive. Or even desk-bound, with your face buried in a computer and your hand fervently moving a mouse – like mine is right now, as I write and edit this post. Anyone remember the opening scene of Joe Vs. the Volcano? It depicts gray people in a gray world walking to their offices with no windows and horrible lighting trapped in a work life from hell. Until Joe finds out he is dying and then? THEN he decides to live. He takes control of his dash.
So put your virtual handshake away every once in a while, leave your desk, office, or house, meet a client or friend at a Starbucks, take your shoes off and walk in the grass, listen to something other than your tweetdeck pinging, take in a breath of fresh air and exhale slowly. The dashes don’t have to pass so quickly – only if you let them.
Don’t be just another white dash…
Rayanne Thorn, @ray_anne is the Marketing Director for the online recruiting software company, Broadbean Technology. She is also a proud mother of four residing in Laguna Beach, California, and a contributor for Blogging4Jobs. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
