First, for those of you reading, forgive me for the time that's gone by. A few weeks ago, I sat at my computer, intent on writing Step 5. In those beginning moments of writing, when I'm accustomed to centering myself and gathering my thoughts, I instead experienced a complete and total paralysis. It was not writer's block; it was much bigger than that. I would perhaps call it life block. Unexpectedly, and with no warning, I felt an overwhelming frustration. It was an all-encompassing, mind-halting, horrible feeling. I knew what I wanted to say, but quite literally could not convince my mind to join me in the task of writing. As I recall it now, I remember thinking that the feeling must have been something like what a person with chronic ADD feels. I simply could not focus, and I began to feel frantic. After about an hour of this struggle, I gave in. Step 5 was not going to be written that day.
I then took a step back from this blog, accepting that something in my own life must need attention before I could write the next step in achieving a life of personal power. I was unclear about the details, but knew I was not in the position to be offering any sort of guiding thought; there was a realization I needed to come to.
Step 5 is about getting clear on what it is we actually want. Many self improvement philosophies contain this concept. They pretty much all repeat that, in order to create the happiness, relationships, and success you desire, you must get crystal clear about what exactly it is that you want. Until you've done this, you're providing the universe with mixed messages, and strong results cannot be delivered in such an environment.
Initially, when I sat to write Step 5 a few weeks ago, my intent was to capsulize my own take on this concept, phrase it in a way that I thought would be most useful, and send it out there for you all to read. What I did not consider, though - and perhaps I was to a certain extent in my own place of denial - was that I've been struggling greatly with this concept recently in my own personal life.
I realized just last night (so this is fresh off the press, my friends), that there is a reason why the idea of needing to get clear on what we want invites a huge amount of fear for many people. I can only tell you what I've experienced, but I'm wagering a guess that there are many, many people out there who can relate.
For me, the idea of getting clear on what exactly it is that I want seems to close a part of me. It's as though I physically feel limitation, and yet cannot pin point why. Last night, I found myself giving this some serious thought. I've accepted for years that I must get clear on what I want before I can get it, so why did the process of determining the specifics make me feel claustrophobic? That's when I realized an underlying assumption I had been making. I realized that, within the process of clearly naming what it was that I wanted, I felt the need to determine what it was exactly that I wanted for the rest of my life.
Can you imagine the pressure? In the middle of trying to specify what I wanted the next months or year of my life to look like, I felt locked in a crazy world of labyrinths all leading to different possible futures. Needless to say, in this atmosphere, nothing but insanity ensues. We can't help but think: "What if I choose the wrong thing? What if doing this now will not lead to what I want to be doing five years from now? Or thirty years from now? I need to figure out what I want to be doing thirty years from now in order to know what I should be wanting to do now! " I'm sorry, but in the words of Frank Berone from Everybody Loves Raymond, "Holy Crap!!!"
The notion that we should know what we want the rest of our lives to look like is absurd and in fact limiting in its own way, and yet, at the end of the day, we all feel this pressure. I felt it immensely. But I see something much more clearly now, and I hope traveling this odd blog entry with me will help you see it too. What I realized last night is this: If we were able to sit here, right now, and determine exactly, with crystal clear clarity, what we wanted the rest of our life to look like, there would be no point in living it.
Truthfully, my friends, I cannot imagine a more stagnant life than one I planned out for myself one day in September 2010. First of all, why would I do that to myself? Why would I hold myself hostage for the rest of my life to the person I was at thirty-one years old? Why would I stunt my growth and close myself off to possibilities that don't even exist yet? I'm getting this comical vision of myself at age fifty or sixty saying, "Hello, possibility. You look awfully great but you see, I'm living the life I planned out for myself a few decades ago, so take care, bye-bye now!"
Secondly, even if I wanted to consciously choose such an absurd path, I literally don't think it would be possible. It is human nature to evolve, and evolution directly determines desire. We cannot know we want something until we've been introduced to it. So, deciding right now, today, what we want for the rest of our life presupposes that every single thing we will be introduced to from here forward, we will not want. Every single new idea or invention will hold no temptation. Every single new person we meet will not be significant. This is not possible. Not if your heart is beating. Also, life would have absolutely no luster. I would dare call this sort of life "lifeless," which kind of defeats the point, doesn't it?
So, with all of this rambling in mind, I'd just like to say that, while it is important to reach for a certain amount of clarity in life, there is never a need to feel bound. Be kind to yourself, both present and future. Respect the path you're traveling. Know that it's leading you where you want to go, even as the itinerary changes. Instead of stressing yourself out trying to predict every color and brush stroke on your life's canvas, trust that you will have a blast painting in each detail as you get there.
Certainty is most definitely a gift, but the danger that follows is in thinking we should do nothing if we are not certain. If there is something you want, right now, today, DO IT. Don't get caught up in whether or not it fits in to some foggy, distant plan. Things have a way of fitting. Experiences come together in myriad ways, providing ever new and more exciting opportunities. My guess is, when we are all old and looking back on our lives, we won't regret one single instance when we decided to "go for it." In fact, it's kind of fun to think about a life as a series of "go for it" moments. What will your next one be? I implore you, for the sake of your happiness and the happiness of those who love you - don't get stuck in a two-dimensional picture of what you think your life should look like. Go out and live it. You might just amaze yourself.
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