“Once you stop worrying about an exit, you are free to chase the things that matter.” We hadn’t spoken in nearly a year but our lunch picked up effortlessly from that last conversation. Such is the way of meaningful friendships…they become meaningful in time and the easy way they unfold, unburdened by the weight of particular expectations. Our free-range discussion moved lightly among the shoals of family, health, politics, and work. My comment about an “exit” wasn’t an answer to a question but a statement about freedom and purpose.

Now almost 16 years into my own entrepreneurial experiment and leading an organization growing rapidly among the rocks of the social and economic maelstrom we call healthcare, a frequent question I get is about my “exit.” When? What’s the plan? Such an interesting word, “exit” in this sense means both ending and beginning, an arrival, then transition to whatever one may imagine such an exit enables.

My friend hadn’t asked about an exit. We were discussing impact and meaning. He had shared some powerful stories of humanity around his own healthcare delivery experiences and we were exploring the “why” in a space that has many complex problems and no easy answers. “We’re not chasing an exit. We’re chasing the big problems,” I continued. When the primary objective is not maximizing shareholder value, an organization is liberated to pursue answers that might not satisfy the financial expectations of others. The “things that matter” can vary greatly.

A few years earlier, I found myself in a rental car with my wife and youngest daughter, driving a little too quickly on a California backroad. Forty five minutes earlier, we had decided to leave our Napa Valley hotel and make a run to the coast to see the sunset. Traffic getting out of Saint Helena and the winding road we were on made the objective of our mission doubtful; the sun was dipping below the hills and we had nearly a 30 minutes to go. The landscape had become sparse with a few farms and even fewer cars but we pressed-on, fully committed.

We still laugh today as we remember our trek that evening. The whimsy of it. The excitement of time running out. The music (I’m pretty sure it was an 80’s station), laughter, and occasional frustration with less motivated travelers. We were chasing the sunset for no other reason than the experience of it. And that was enough. We pulled into the little parking lot at Dillon Beach to walk out on the cold, windy, and mostly empty beach as the sun was slowly disappearing below the horizon of the endless Pacific Ocean.

I’m currently finishing my second reading of Bono’s Surrender, the story of he and U2 told through 40 of their songs. In the Chapter, Mysterious Ways, he opens by talking about Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon in 1969 and his dad commenting that President Kennedy wanted it to happen “not because it was easy but because it was hard.” He goes on to write: “It’s an image that will stay with me through the years, an image for the impossible made possible by faith and fearlessness, by science and strategy.”

Waking this morning, my mind wandered to the many things. The tasks, problems, barriers, people, politics, etc. The things we chase. Many we don’t even want to be chasing. After a few minutes of chasing them down their various rabbit holes, I snapped out of it as I found myself laughing…at myself. In my world, we call this thrashing but all of us engage in it one way or another. I realized that, if it was helpful, it wouldn’t be thrashing.

Considering our California sunset, my imagination soars into the memory, a capacious feeling of being alive as we moved toward something meaningful, something worth experiencing. And then arriving, the impossibility of that horizon and the wonder of the fiery orange orb seeming to disappear in the dark, endless ocean. Even now, my heart skips at the recollection and my senses are full of the smells, sounds, and sensations.

As I contemplate the things that matter, it occurs to me that an exit is the last thing I’m chasing. Each of our exits will come quickly enough. I think I’d rather chase entries, new doorways to experience and engage with the things that really matter. The people, places, and moments, that cause my heart to soar toward the transcendent, where my imagination can run wild with wonder.

Thinking again of the conversation with my friend, I realize that what really moves us in our work are the human stories, the discovery and flourishing that appear in the great efforts to alleviate suffering, repair brokenness, and solve the impossible challenges. Rather than chasing an exit, perhaps its better to chase the sunset as an “image for the impossible made possible by faith and fearlessness, by science and strategy.” Thank you Bono, I think I’ll keep that one.