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BE PART OF THE LEGACY

TAMPA BAY • FEBRUARY 23-24 2026

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Looking In / Looking Out

I woke up early one day in the late mid-morning eager to shake off another evaporated nightmare. So I did this time as I did last time and the time before that. There was a pause in my struggle to get my humanity on. Questions about love and hate and of fathers who never returned home from wars they were chosen to fight but did so anyway as that was what they were taught to be right. My wandering mind rambled from one thought to another never knowing why or bothering to ask. There is no controlling my mind now but others sit at readiness to run my mind for me.

What is of this world today where everything looks broken with no help from self-proclaimed experts in their field?

A vase filled to the brim with life fell off the shelf and shattered into pieces and fragments when It hit the floor. People are being killed everywhere every day but other than for the sake of feeding hate nobody knows why.  How many of those sons, daughters, husbands, and wives could have been somebody but that will never be revealed except for an epitaph carved into a marble tombstone in some forgotten graveyard where nobody who was somebody would ever be entombed.

Looking out over the rivers of highways you see today’s warriors rushing off to fight another day if not this day. Behind the tinted windshields far removed from the refracted glare of the sun, minds are hard at work thinking. Their thoughts too are of questions that answers will not respond to or concerns others may share but no mention is ever made. Into the end of the night’s day, nothing will have changed. What we hoped for from this day was somehow never meant to be. Perhaps when the alarm clocks ring in uncertain arrival times of whenever tomorrow shall be as we have been there before there we will find relief if it can be found.

There are no shortages of misguided notions or distorted truths spoken by the so-called experts who would sell a truth or a lie to the highest bidder. They talk of things they do not really know but in the interest of self-promotion or self-preservation they press on hoping to nest in an accepting ear that comes from a wanting to love heart. Although they know we have read their tired script before they react with anger if we dare challenge them. Accepting of their false truths is all that matters. These people live in snippets of distorted realities stuffed into clear easy to close clear plastic sandwich bags.

In the meantime, there are people trying to understand each having forgotten who they once were. A son to his father a daughter to her mother neither wanting to be like, live like or love like the other. There is no difference in their sameness. Each has an idea of what the other should be yet neither can feel each other’s pain or know suffering with silent sorrow. There is what will be with us or without us.

“And time and tide will wait for no one”

–Days Of Wine And Roses, Robin Gibb

Make your plans to have a plan that includes having and saving your humanity. Exclude everything that is the best of the worst. Plan on inheriting the wind so you may follow it wherever you are lifted aloft to. Drink in the rains that will come your way so they may hydrate you. You are on your way as are they. Looking in or looking out what you will see is of what you know or once knew then. Never forget you are just like the rest even If you are not.  In your strength there lays your weakness. In your weakness lays the strength you may not yet have. Soon you will be. Soon you will be. So too soon they will be not of what we see them as.

“Through the rivers of my childhood, they come swimming into view.  And all the moments that I treasure still lie buried in my youth.”

–Days Of Wine And Roses, Robin Gibb

Do not take on the dubious distinction of being labeled a liar whose life lives with doubt or puts life and liberty in doubt. The pain you plan to inflict may never pan out when the hands of hope rise up against you. You are a loyal friend, ally and defender of the holy but what lurks under your skin that you pretend we cannot see. Stand still salute with your eyes wide open while judgments are made for a  future you may not have. There has been too much taken away with nothing put back. What will happen when the ranks of childless children begin to swell with no way to turn it back? Less hungry mouths to feed you proudly exclaim. No, you are wrong! Less food will there be for everyone left living alive. Fool you did not know! Pay the price!

Spies, liars, and lawyers, and co-conspirators dominate our days by clouding our vision. Is this all there is? Somehow we were expecting more of something different. Whatever happened to the promise of a better tomorrow with a brighter future that was supposed to start today? We are paying for the privilege of you. It is you who must take the blame with the world in flame. Whose side are you on? What of love do you know if at all? Love for an hour is not love if that is what you know of love.

And so I must now begin to end. A year is near its end as is a decade. What could have been was not. What could be may be or might not be.  Perhaps there can be less hate. Perhaps more lives that are waiting to be born will be allowed to be born. Life takes away the death from those who are not yet destined to die. For now, may we hold each other in a tender embrace while vowing never to let go? Wipe away our salty tears. Bring on a smile if you can. It’s okay to feel hurt but please do not help hurt to hurt others.

There is so much so many have to give. So many need to be given. Let them know you are out there. Looking in or looking out for whom or for what. Take in what you need to give as that is not uncommon. Focus on you as it relates to what is around you. You are not the world or the focus of it.  What you say is not the only dictum to be heard or should be heard. We are different in many of our private worlds but the same in the main world. Cultivate your consciousness in alignment with our hidden humanity to bring about the good.

So here at the end of the ending, I have said what I said about many things. Many things I have said may have been said but not yet said by me in my own way to mean what I need it to me. No, it’s not me alone even if alone I prefer to be although not really that way.

“Where I am, what I am, what I believe in”

–Holly Holy, Neil Diamond.

Goodbye, my dear friends. May there always be another tomorrow waiting for you to claim it. Your words filled with kindness meant so much. These will be my final words in public print for how long of a time I do not know. Wherever I go from here I hope to meet you again somewhere in the middle of each other’s journey.

May yours be a happy and bright holiday season. Please have a happy, healthy and peaceful 2020. Be in the present while looking for a future but never forgetting or letting go of the past. What is past may very well become the present again. Be kind to humankind and animal kind. Animals need us to need them too. Goodnight. And the screen grows dark as all light must now be banished into darkness.

Joel Elveson
Joel Elvesonhttps://jelveson.wixsite.com/recruitersite
INDEPENDENT Executive Recruiting By Joel is an "up and coming" Executive Search Firm formed and headed up by Joel Elveson whose visionary ideas, leadership & creativity have brought to life a more "user-friendly" approach to recruiting. His clients and candidates form powerful strategic partnerships that we use to help you. Joel’s Firm offers Permanent, Temporary (case by case), & Temporary To Permanent staffing solutions for all of your Human Capital Requirements. Contract IT/Consultants are available if needed. Above and beyond they are experts (by way of their personal industry work experience) with mortgage, mortgage banking, middle-market banking, accounting, along with many others under the vast financial spectrum of disciplines. Their business goes beyond candidate recruiting as they also train, mentor and develop your internal recruiting staff with an eye towards helping you reduce the cost of hiring. They will also work in areas such as compensation, effective onboarding processes and alike. In other words, their business is to help your business by becoming an extension of you by filling in gaps that cause delay or waste. The recruiting methods employed by Joel’s team are time tested that results in a high rate of successful placements. Joel was trained in the art of recruiting by some of the top staffing industry executives in addition to the best recruiter trainers who to this day drive me to exceed the lofty goals he has set forth.

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26 CONVERSATIONS

  1. Joel I love this one. You share the concerns that many of us have. I will miss you my dear friend. I am not sure a writer can stop writing and perhaps you only need a break. I am blessed to be able to call you my friend and i am always near if you need me.

    • Larry, you are a dear friend. Your words matter
      The writer in me needs and so desperately wants to write. I will do so when I can. The almighty dollar is tugging at my sleeves. Sometimes it is hard to make money and write. If I can’t make it back I will be thinking of you in addition to looking out for your articles. Be well my friend and have a Happy, healthy and safe New Year. Take care!

  2. Joel,
    “There was a pause in my struggle to get my humanity on.”
    Strong statement from the start of what we all need to show. I firmly felt every word from this article merge with my own struggles in daily life, the unnecessary pain so carelessly inflicted upon each other. The good, the bad, the encouragement, the wars, the frightened and scared, the hungry and lonely, The happy and joyful, the loving and kind. We fluctuate greatly and bounce all around. For me in my heart I feel I am looking out and seeing what I don’t want to see, living what I don’t want to live..and yet I’m trying just to give. Life is really wonderful, and there are lessons we learn. The journey we all have and what we are meant to do.
    I am now in this place where nothing matters more to me than the robe of humanity. To wear it everyday, no matter no what. To share what I can and be there for others. To love myself, so I can love others. The birthright of dignity was granted to us all. No one is better and no one is worse. It is our number one job to help one another! This is the robe I want to wear,
    Thank you for this article and making me feel much better that your words can comfort and reach out to others! I walk with you friend in the sea Of humanity! We are not always received, but we don’t stop caring.
    All the best to you and Happy New year too! May the love that is life reveal to others that the love is God and he is life!
    Thank you my friend
    Great article. And I loved the BeeGees too!
    PaulaG

  3. Beautiful and poetic, Joel. I share your questions. Unfortunately, I am short on answers. If we let it, “despair” can take over and suck every last bit of joy from us. But if we do that, we’re lost. So, we have to fight. Thank you for writing and for quoting one of my favorite novels, as well as films.

    • Sherry, thank you for reading and commenting on my article. Thank you as well for the compliment. There are so many questions about what we can do, should not do, etc. about confronting the myriad of problems we are facing. I agree with you that if we get so absorbed in what is going on we can feel despair or a sense of hopelessness. Amidst it all, there should still be joy and happiness. Happy Holidays!

  4. Dear Joel – you MATTER; to the folks who love you; to the folks who you love; to our God who created you in His image. You have profound insights (for those who fail to see); wisdom (for those who never take time for understanding); truth (for those who live a lie); and your wonderful written script for all of us fellow-writers who you truly inspire! God speed my literary friend.

  5. Joel, I have not been a part of this site very long, but have enjoyed your writing and your thoughful comments. My prayer for you is that Light will overcome the darkness. We live in exciting and very challenging times these days. Evil has always co-existed with good. The news broadcasts whatevr drives ratings, and sadly that does not include much of the very good things that happen daily locally and around the world. It’s important for us to be a part of a community where we can lean on each other, learn from one another….laugh and cry with one another and pray for one another. God wired us for relationship. On this site or not my prayer is that you will find light that will overcome the darkness. All things are possibel with God. Blessings to you and your loved ones in this coming New Year Joel.

  6. I’m sorry to hear you are leaving us Joel, I have thoroughly enjoyed your introspective posts. I can’t say that I’ve read all of your articles, but whenever I come across your words, I sense a good man with deep feelings and remorse for things that are out of his control. I believe the world has always been in turmoil. Ever since we learned to walk and throw stones, we have been fighting one another in the playground. Now we have these tiny little devices in the palm of our hands jam packed with the weight of the universe… to see first hand that we haven’t changed, that we haven’t evolved from our primitive state to be a better species despite our knowledge and advancements. I can feel this disappointment in your words Joel, and I know it bothers you. But I’d also beg to say that God knows your conflict, and perhaps one day He will reveal his better view of the universe. Until such time, just turn off all the noise and nonsense streaming into your heart. Shut it off and put your feet up my friend. You’ve done well…

    • Aaron, thank you for your warm expressions. Your comments are very meaningful to me not to mention filled with truth. Just about both feet are out the door but you never know if I will fall back in upon retrospective thinking leaving this group is not something I should do. I appreciate your readership greatly. To a larger degree, I appreciate your friendship.

  7. Joel – Amazing – you have put words to the anguish most Americans are feeling today. But hope is out there – whether we find it in time is yet to be seen. So, during this break, let us pray – for patience, understanding, kindness, peace, and love. Thank you, my dear friend, for your words

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