Everybody gets pushed on by all sorts of forces. Some come from the outside and push straight in. Others come from the inside and push left, right, up, down or out. And then there are the ones that come from the outside and push straight through out on their way to something else. The ones that hit you like some helpless bystander caught in a drive-by shooting.
I don’t think I would go so far as to say that how someone handles these forces, external or internal, is a test of their character. It’s a test, sure. But of character? Not so sure about that. I think the better test of character is to see how well a person picks and chooses which forces to fight, which to submit to and which to watch from a distance.
A very good friend of mine told me of a dream she had about a huge wave coming straight at her. Recurring type of thing that haunted again and again. Eventually another friend told her to ride the wave, to body surf it.
Half the crap we deal with can usually be handled by simple knowing how to approach it. Is this something to tackle alone? Is this something to handle with the help of a professional? Is this something to ignore? Is this something to bear down and endure? Or will simply looking at it from a different angle show a completely different shape? Perhaps something more pleasant. Perhaps something even more frightening. You never really know until you take the time to have a look at it.
In this case my friend hasn’t been haunted by the dream since changing her perspective on it. Not after she looked at it in a different way.
I’m not particularly adept at recognizing the source of the forces pounding on me though. I’ve got a gift of strength, conviction and resolve but not necessarily of awareness. Few people do have the awareness gift in all honesty. And we all suffer from not seeking an outside opinion. Bouncing ideas off of other people is enormously important. Sometimes just imagining what your best friend would say is enough. “What would Mike do”, or some stuff like that. More often you need the real thing, the real response from the real person.
So yeah… seems that there are some forces pushing on me right now. Strong stuff. Forces from outside and definitely forces from inside. I’m on the verge of changing some pretty big bits of my life. Been thinking pretty hard about what to do for a living, where to do it, and with whom to spend my time. I’ll admit that I’ve made a few decisions in that regard. I’ll admit that I’m extraordinarily happy with those decisions as well. Just this weekend I committed to a decision that I hope to keep near to me for life. Feels damn good to know at least one thing definitively. But there are enough details to work out, enough other things… enough sources urging for other change that it’s a bit overwhelming. I want to unwrap them, untangle it, sort all of it out. And that leads me to the bigger question: How?
Optimistically I think there comes a time when your problems are solved simply by desiring something else so purely that you no longer feel the effects of original problem. Does that make sense? But not everything is totally clear cut and passionate. Not all decisions are made for you. Not all decisions are easy.
When you very much love what you do it’s definitely easier to exclude the things you don’t love. That makes decision making a bit easier. It’s definitely better than living in the sustained “lesser of two evils” state that most of us deal with on a daily basis. Constantly choosing between crap and crappier gets old fast. Passion, on the other hand, is a stunningly good leader; it loves having control. And so long as your passions are healthy, that’s totally cool. It’s safe and won’t often lead you wrong.
No, what I’m really talking about here is when you’re dealing with too much passion. Or, worse, when the practical and the passionate confront one-another with butting heads. This is the worst situation of all. When a person is asked to give up or sacrifice their passions it is a horrible thing. Even if he’s being asked to sacrifice one passion for another it’s a terrible thing.
Well, I don’t know the answer to this question of How. I don’t know how to tackle my issue of awareness either. All of it seems a bit frustrating and I’m sort of sleepy. Really want to slow things down and enjoy my life. And perhaps that will be my saving grace… being sick and tired of being sick and tired. Am willing to do pretty much anything to get myself back to the point where I’m enjoying my life again, full-time.