An Unexpected Source Of Clarity

An Unexpected Source Of Clarity

Mention their names and you’d swear that they wouldn’t be good together. Polar opposites, most would agree. Yet, it’s that very polarity which can make them important partners.

For most of my life I’ve sought a level of clarity, of trying to understand who I am and what I am here to do with this one life I’ve been given. This inner journey has taken me in many different direction, each path directly or indirectly leading me closer to the clarity I’ve been seeking.

On this long and meandering quest I’ve learned a great deal about life and about myself. Paradoxically one of the key components on my path to clarity has been the introduction of doubt.

Doubt. As in uncertainty. As in compassionately questioning what it is I’ve been willing to accept about myself and what’s possible for me. My beliefs shape my identity, and my identity shapes how it is I allow my life to unfold.

What if what I believe about myself isn’t really true?

What if it actually is?

By introducing doubt into the equation of who it is I tell myself I am – or am not – I create the space for an inner dialog where a Continue reading “An Unexpected Source Of Clarity”

Embracing The Power Of Clarity

Embracing The Power Of Clarity

With a blizzard on the way, I was able to get my electrician neighbor to finally hook up my generator. Finally, because I was the one who had been putting it off, often forgetting I even had a generator which needed to be hooked up.

In the community where we live, good size storms have usually meant a loss of power. Trees vs. overhead power lines, and the trees usually win. No power means no heat, no water, and no light. Of all the things I take for granted in my life, electricity has to be in the Top 3. Does anyone ever marvel at flicking a switch on the wall and the lights magically turning on?

Now, should we lose power, with a few flicks of a few switches, heat, water, and light will be restored. The generator serving as a back up reserve fuel source to get me through the storms which arrive outside of my control.

Sometimes life gives us different types of storms to endure, where there aren’t a few simple switches to flick on and get our lives back to where we want them to be. These are the emotional storms, equally as unwanted as the ones nature brings upon us, but often far more damaging and painful.

It would be really cool if you could buy some sort of emergency emotional generator to get you through such storms.

I guess the only option is to create one.

When life knocks your power out, what reserves do you have available to keep you moving forward? Faith? Hope? Trust? For me, having the clarity of a vision as to what I want to create in my life has proven to be quite a powerful emotional resource, and understanding “why” that vision matters.

That hasn’t always been the case.

For much of my life I meandered about without a particularly clear and defined destination. Ever searching and seeking, I was no match for the storms of life which would show up, much like overhead power lines are no match for the weight of the snow and ice covered branches of the trees above them. My searching and seeking did eventually get me to a place where what I want and why I want it have become quite clear. That destination shapes every step of my journey. In that clarity is a strength, a resolve, and when the unexpected storms arise and knock me over, and they still do, it’s the conviction of clarity which serves as the fuel source to help me rise yet again and to keep myself moving forward.

“Pain pushes until vision pulls” as Michael Bernard Beckwith has often said. Four words which perfectly define the process of my own evolution.

Perhaps of yours as well?

Where is your vision taking you?

Time Really Doesn’t Care What You Do With It

Time Really Doesn’t Care What You Do With It

I hadn’t thought of it quite this way.

Just six weeks left.

It’s mid November and the year is coming to an end. Six weeks and it will be the start of a new year. It will also be the start of a new decade.

That’s the part which stunned me a bit.

Where did the last ten years go?

Most of the time I never think about time. The busy-ness of life often keeps my mind on what’s right in front of me. And the next thing you know a full decade has come to an end.

It’s interesting to look back at the decades of your life and reflect and remember what life felt like back then, what you did, or what you didn’t do. The victories and the defeats, the joys and the pains. A common denominator of the decades of my life is that the decades sort of just happened, simply unfolding in the way that they did. Kinda feels for the most part I was in many ways just going along for the ride.

Having collected many decades myself, being reminded that this one is coming to a close has surprisingly stirred things up within me. As I look back at the past 10 years there is a sense that I could have done better. Done better in the sense of showing up with far more intention and presence. It was a decade of transitions on many levels, but my initial assessment is that life during these last 10 years was more reactionary than intentional. Behold the glory of hindsight and experience and looking back in time and seeing how things could have been.

A younger, less-evolved version of me would have used this awareness against me. I can so vividly see that version of me calling me out for not making the most of those years, even though I have no idea exactly what making the most of those years actually would have looked like. Sometimes we can really hold ourselves to such unrealistic expectations, can’t we?

With my new found reality that I’m six weeks away from a brand new decade, I’m giving serious pause and envisioning what I want to become and accomplish and experience in the coming ten years. For the first time I’m setting clear intentions for myself going forward into the new decade, no longer content of just seeing where time will take me.

The next ten years are going to happen regardless of how I chose to show up for them. Time is indifferent. Time doesn’t care if in ten years I’m looking back wishing I had spent them differently.

That’s not a conversation I intend on having with myself in November 2029.

What are your intentions for the next ten years? What will be your priority? What do you plan to become and accomplish and experience?

The life you want isn’t just going to happen.

It’s a great day to be you!

Avoiding The Thanksgiving Surprise

Avoiding The Thanksgiving Surprise

Ever notice how when Thanksgiving approaches some people are surprised that it’s here already? Like it sort of snuck up on them and they never saw it coming?

And that leads to the obligatory conversation about how fast the year has gone by and wondering where the time actually went.

Like Thanksgiving, life, too, can often sneak up on you and before you know it you’re left wondering where the years of your life went. The speed of life can often feel like you’re just trying to keep up with it. When life is lived reacting to life itself there’s not much time left for living.

But isn’t living the real reason we are alive?

Time is moving and it’s not stopping. Not for anyone or anything. And since the clock isn’t stopping, isn’t now the time to make our life our real priority, to clarify and define exactly what the life we are here to live should look and feel like and then refocus our time and energy on making our vision our reality?

Don’t wait until the November of your life to start to living it.

You just might miss it.

It’s a great day to be you!

 

Photo by Elijah O’Donnell on Unsplash

Alcohol, Red Meat, and the Clarity of Purpose

Alcohol, cookies, and red meat.

And we can’t forget about the swearing.

At various points in my life I’ve given each of them up for the 40 days of Lent. I was brought up believing Lent was about giving up stuff I liked to make the God I was taught to fear happy. Eventually I saw into the significance of what spiritual discipline was all about, but I never saw the correlation between my diet and vocabulary and my spiritual salvation. But that’s just me.

As a spiritual meanderer, I’ve often struggled with some of life’s bigger questions. None bigger than trying to figure out what God wants me to do Continue reading “Alcohol, Red Meat, and the Clarity of Purpose”

Life Lessons from the Number 643

“…A united self moving forward towards fulfilling our own unique divine promise…”

There were many things I learned in school that at the time made no practical sense to me. You know, the “am I ever going to use this in real life?” question. Several decades later I can confirm that for the most part time has not made what I considered then to be impractical anymore practical.

As a dad with school-aged kids I actively get involved in their studies. I like to be aware of what they’re working on. I like to be there to help out if they get a little stuck. Dad 101…here for the kids. A more secretive motivation is to see if ol’ dad still remembers the stuff, especially when it comes to math. My math skills back in the day weren’t that good to begin with, and the newer methods of Continue reading “Life Lessons from the Number 643”

2,134 Ways To Be Happy: Confessions From The Functionally Unhappy

WARNING:

This post contains a BIG BOLD STATEMENT.

It seems like a lot of people are looking for happiness. Walk through any bookstore and count the number of times you see the words “happy” or “happiness”. If you had $5 for each time you saw those words you could probably make a mortgage payment. Just for fun, Google the word “happiness”. The last time I did, Google came back with over 75,400,000 entries. I found sites about happiness quotes, happiness poems, happiness articles, happiness blogs, happiness affirmations, happiness posters, happiness videos, even happiness retreats. I found happiness everything.

I can’t help but wonder…with such an overly abundant supply of happiness support materials, are we in the middle of some sort of Continue reading “2,134 Ways To Be Happy: Confessions From The Functionally Unhappy”