“It’s not the destination—it’s the path ”

The point of the exercise

So, here we are at the end of this mini series, and I want to give you some guidelines.

As I’ve writ­ten, this exer­cise was designed to help you see an over­all direc­tion for your life. Most of us quite clearly know what we are called to do, or what “pulls us.” And many fear what such a pull might require.

I hope you fol­lowed along with the exer­cises, and espe­cially looked at the ways you get in your own way. That one exer­cise is a price­less gift — pro­vid­ing you’re will­ing to take the next step.

Blocks—Your “Com­plex­i­fy­ing List”

Have another look at your list of ways you stop your­self. There may be many items on your list, but I can assure you that every item is a vari­ant of one or two base­line rea­sons for not fol­low­ing one’s path.

Fear and Self-justification

Fear—we don’t like uncer­tainly, and fol­low­ing the pull of your heart, when rea­son is scream­ing, “You’ve got to be kid­ding me!” is tricky. You know you are caught in fear-based think­ing when you find your­self only talk­ing about what could go wrong.

Self-justification—here’s another exer­cise. Look at where you are, right now. Include an inven­tory of

1. who you are with
2. what you do: for a liv­ing, for recre­ation, for spir­i­tual devel­op­ment, etc.
3. where you live, and under what circumstances
4. what you fight with oth­ers about
5. who you ‘blame’ when you’re not happy.

Now, and this will be hard, look at your list, and notice what you tell your­self about these things.

Here’s what I hear, a lot:

“I’d be happy if I was mar­ried to another person.”

“My kids drive me crazy.”

“I’d leave my job, but I’ve got senior­ity and pen­sion to consider.”

“My par­ents give me bad advice.”

And tons of other excuses that do only one thing: jus­tify the person’s stay­ing stuck, through thick appli­ca­tion of finger-pointing and lack of self-responsibility.

Here’s the impor­tant part

You are where you are right now, doing what you are doing, solely and com­pletely by your free choice. No one dragged you there, no one makes you keep repeat­ing the same stu­pid mis­takes, and no one ‘makes you miserable.’

I have one client who end­lessly lists prob­lems, then assigns blame, and then, after a ses­sion, lets me know I have helped her. But it’s a weird thing.

She thinks that what I am telling her is to suck it up, stop cre­at­ing drama, and then life will be hap­pier. I’m not. I want her to stop the games, stop wast­ing her life, and get on with her walk—which, so far, she’s been too busy to do.

What’s she busy with? Stay­ing stuck, through anger, blam­ing and self justification!

Here’s the point of all of this

I’m not try­ing to find ways for my client, or for you, to be hap­pier with your lot in life. I’m work­ing toward get­ting you to drop your excuses and eva­sions, and go, do, and be the per­son you are meant to be.

Instead of fear or excuse based liv­ing, I’m encour­ag­ing you to step up to the plate, drop the things that you are hold­ing your­self back over (includ­ing jobs, rela­tion­ships, ‘social oblig­a­tions,’ etc.) and finally get on with liv­ing a rich and mean­ing­ful life.

Con­sider the state of the world.

I don’t know about you, by my invest­ment port­fo­lio is down 30% or more in the last month. We are in a reces­sion, jobs and entire com­pa­nies are dis­ap­pear­ing, the sub-prime mort­gage débâ­cle in the USA is nowhere near to the bot­tom, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Most naively assumed that the boom times would never end, and so fix­ated on exter­nals. Now, the exter­nals are crum­bling, and exter­nal secu­rity is being seen for the illu­sion it always has been. And despite bil­lions upon bil­lions of res­cue cash, the drama goes on.

My point? You can’t wait for the right time. You can’t wait for per­mis­sion. You can’t stop your­selves out of fear. No mat­ter what you want, “the world” is going to do what­ever it does. Exter­nals won’t save you.

It’s time to imple­ment ‘your per­fect day.’ How? Small step by small step, but always walking.

Time to own your path, and to start walk­ing it. Divest your­self of the things that are mill­stones around your neck, and start walking.

The card at the top (the illus­tra­tion) is from the OSHO Zen Tarot deck. Notice, it is called “Ordi­nar­i­ness.” The per­son is walk­ing the path, col­lect­ing the har­vest. He is doing what he is doing, with full atten­tion. He is not try­ing to be spe­cial, to be noticed, to be “in charge.” He’s just mind­fully walk­ing the only path avail­able to him—his own path.

Part of the card descrip­tion reads:

You are fac­ing a time now when this easy, nat­ural and utterly ordi­nary approach to the sit­u­a­tions you encounter will bring far bet­ter results than any attempts on your part to be bril­liant, clever, or oth­er­wise extra-ordinary…The spe­cial gift you have to offer now is pre­sented best by just tak­ing things eas­ily and sim­ply, one step at a time.

You have your life, and you have your skill set.

If there is a point to all of this—to life and living–it is this:

Stop play­ing games and block­ing your best self, either through fear or through end­less self-justifications for stay­ing stuck. Engage with your wants, your pas­sion and your true direc­tion. Take one step, and one step, but do not divert from this path. Drop that which weighs you down, and walk.

Or, to quote Anais Nin:

There is not one big cos­mic mean­ing for all, there is only the mean­ing we each give to our life, an indi­vid­ual mean­ing, an indi­vid­ual plot, like an indi­vid­ual novel, a book for each person.

and

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Be the blossom.