purpose

What If I Got It Wrong?

I am not where I thought I would be. I do not feel how I thought I would feel. I am not doing all that I thought I would be doing. And it feels as though I am falling behind.

If there is one thing I am convinced of in acknowledging these brutal truths…I am not very good at predicting when, or how something will happen. And yet I am compelled by visions and intuition that have proved truth enough times over to assure me of my endowments.

What gifts lay within beguile in close proximity to myself.

How am I to reconcile these things? It seems as though without the uncertainty and unknowing, that the vision would become pedestrian and unworthy of the good fight. And yet it is these attributes that plant the seeds of doubt and lament. By not knowing how long or by what journey it will take, the vision is held in the balance of either coming into being, or vanishing with every misgiving.

All of which brings me back to where I am, which is not where I thought I would be. And what scares me more than anything is that I got it wrong. And that there are no do overs.

Be Who You Are Not To Know Who You Are

Who am I? What is my purpose? I have wrestled with these questions and it wasn’t until I had the distance of perspective before I could begin to answer them. Perspective that has been full of dead ends, uninspired moments and outright suffering. I did finally discover it and it is much clearer to me now. And as I have both reflected on my journey and talked with many people about identity and purpose–the young who are impatient and IMG_0001frustrated, the old who are tired and full of regret, the in-between who regardless of age are called by something they cannot decipher–following is what I have learned:

  • Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Nothing is learned by running away from discomfort, but rather it only ensures more will come. Get used to being uncomfortable and meditating in the moment. Ask, what you are learning? Discomfort is a muse. Learn from her.
  • Repeated experiences in the uninspiring are informing you of who you are not. Until you experience who you are not, you will not discover who you are.
  • When you discover who you are, you will also realize the answer has been there all along. Ask the Creator for forgiveness, and then forgive yourself. This shit ain’t easy.
  • It took Edison 10,000 tries to find a filament for the light bulb that worked. Get on with it.
  • Who you are does not define what you do. But it does create alignment and a tighter bell curve (forgive me, I am a recovering engineer…)
  • Discovering who you are leads to discovering your purpose in life, and that will transform the people around you. It is not enough to just know it, however. Do something with it. Living to your purpose transforms people beyond you, in ways you will never know.