Finding My Way Home

I've been spending some time reading blogs again this morning and there seems to be a common thread running through many of them. It's all about goal-setting and accomplishment. This is so foreign to my way of thinking now that I felt a bit gobsmacked by it.

Then I got to thinking....

Our individual approach to living an authentic or satisfying life seems to depend a lot on our stages of life.

In my own case, I deal with a physical and emotional framework that is much older than my chronological years. This, combined with such a tiny income drastically limits the scope of what is possible to accomplish, of all the things one might wish to do or goals one might want to pursue.

For a long time, I ranted and railed about the unfairness of my differences. Why couldn't I be like others? Why couldn't I value what it seemed everyone else values so intently? Why couldn't I care about the hunt and gather World Series that so many devote their lives to? Why couldn't I care more about "stuff", owning it and acquiring it? (That's when I wasn't busy dogpaddling around in a pool of self pity!)

There comes a time when certain realities set in, no matter how hard we try, how many lists we write, or how hard we work to set and meet goals meant to help us "accomplish stuff."

Like aging. Disabilities. Chronic illnesses. Losses or financial insecurity that simply cannot be reversed, only absorbed and incorporated into the reality of our lives.

What has been useful to me in letting go is a very simple philosophy that was (somehow?) whispered into my ear when I realized my ability to sustain a "normal" pace was coming to an end. I had no means of support and I truly feared that if I stopped, I would either die or end up on the street. I was sitting under an oak tree at the time, when the words came to me...

"You already have all you need. Use what you have."

This made no sense at the time, yet has proven to be a truth so huge I can't even begin to describe it.

I'll settle for saying this: it was the beginning of a journey that instead of being focused outward, towards what I could/must/should still do or have in the external material world to a long journey inward that I had never taken before.

Once my familiar immersion in the external, material world was taken away and there was nothing left to do but journey inward, it would prove to be one hell of a ride!

Remember scavenger hunts or treasure hunts that children play? It was like that ~ in a way. Following hints and clues and random thoughts down one inner path after another, I discovered treasure after treasure I had totally missed during the years I spent struggling against an invisible monolith.

Most all of them were tiny, shiny bits of my original self that life had chipped off or that I had deliberately amputated and discarded as unacceptable to those in this world whose acceptance I thought I had to have.

I'd examine these shiny bits, collect them up, dust them off, to find where they fit into that authentic self I'd so long ago abandoned.

As this process continued, I discovered my very own truths and beliefs, as opposed to those that were so skillfully imposed upon me. They'd never felt much like my own but I also didn't see a real alternative.

Slowly I came to see I really needed none of what I'd lost materially or function-wise (or that which I thought had been taken from me by the fickle fingers of unfair fate!)

I still have "goals" but much differently defined than ever before. None of them reach beyond this one single moment in which I am breathing. And none of them have one bit to do with doing anything, only with being.

Because those whispered words are totally true for me.

I already have all I need. And I know how to use it.

So there's really nothing to "strive toward" anymore because it's already here.

This has been a long and difficult treasure hunt and it is far from over. One I would never have had, if I hadn't accepted the limitations of my own being, to realize that there are always choices and alternatives, that authenticity has its own value and that I no longer had to try to cram my being into boxes that no longer fit.
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