Challenges

Go to a hotel where a large conference is taking place. Sit in the lobby of the hotel and watch people. Watch them go by. Look at their facial expressions. Also observe their posture and gait. Do they stride to their destination – meeting room, lunch appointment, or workshop? Do they stroll leisurely? Are they alert and standing with an erect posture?

Maybe they slouch and appear to drag themselves to their next obligation. Or timidly, tentatively move around the space, looking at others for a hint of what they are to do next?

Or maybe they are doing what you are doing: watching other people.

Why do this at all? For me it is because I sense stories among the mass of people in this one place. We are drawn here for a common purpose, or maybe we are the odd interloper called to a different meeting or purpose. Whatever that goal we sense human stories untold all around us.

What bright ideas repose in the minds of all these people? What lure is needed to uncover those ideas, to make them of use? How would they share their ideas, in writing? By spoken word? Or in some other fashion maybe?

How many here are dealing with a burgeoning personal story – a pending marriage, a birth of a first child, or a divorce? How many among us this moment are balancing a career and personal life story vastly at odds with one another?  And will this balancing act hold up? Will it safeguard both stories until they are ready to be lived and told?

Who is to know? Who will tell the story?

We all have our struggles in life. Many are routine and manageable. Some are of exquisite pleasure and happiness; those struggles are worth the work and make us giddy! Others weigh us down – ill health of a loved one, potential loss of a job, loss of home or other financial catastrophe. The manageable, the tolerable, the happy and the tragic; each struggle a part of our life and history. Then, too, a part of our unique chemistry and character.

How well we weather these ups and downs tell yet another story. We build ‘muscle’ to survive life’s challenges. Experiences themselves require reactions and measured responses. Not always perfectly attuned to the situation, but at least a unique response for that person for that occasion at that time. All the variables shift for each of us. And from moment to moment.

What is it we struggle for?

A heavy question. Do we dare seek the answer? An honest answer? What does the answer say about us, each of us?

I used a quote the other day that I find I need to use again here:

“Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere; and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.”  ~Anonymous

‘Nowhere’ can be found in many places at different times. We don’t seek it, that’s why it is a ‘nowhere’. As we become aware of its ‘nowhere-ness’, however, we begin to realize a significance of it.  It is a forced pause in life. Why are we here? Why now? What do I we do with it?

I love driving out west across deserts and mountains and high altitude plains. The sense of aloneness is not the overwhelming sensation. No; the vast emptiness of the space and landscape seems to embrace me. It speaks freedom. No crowds. Simple obligations (keep the car on the road; don’t run into another car; make it to the next leg of the trip safe and sound) that require little drag on the brain. A time to think and ponder. A string of moments in which to stretch the mind.

What is my life about? What have I been doing with my time on earth? What will I do with the time I have left? Is there a plan, a direction, an overwhelming purpose?

Mandy Hale, the author and famed ‘Single Woman’, gives this advice:

“You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens.”

  

Use the ‘nowhere’ moment to take the extra breath. Trust yourself to be honest with the facts of your life. Allow yourself the freedom to imagine what you want to do with your life, and what purpose it will serve. Then let it happen. Let it unfold naturally. In time it will provide the answers unbidden, the ones we often search for but never find.

From an odd source, www.spousegotthehouse.com, comes this gem:

            “The bad news:  there is no key to happiness.

             The good news: it isn't locked.”

Breathe, trust, let go and see what happens. What you want from life is not locked up anywhere but within yourself. Let it be.

February 7, 2014