Desire engages the infinity of the universe. Our programs and conditions limit their expression and flow.
I’ve always been conflicted by the ways of our modern society. I couldn’t ever find a clear path to a “career” and had had more than enough of the experience of “education” in the dozen-or-so years spent in public schools. They were, in fact, torturous. Why would I want anything more to do with that system?
So, I struck out on the path of experiential learning and self-driven study. Still, there was heavy pressure from the world to choose something rudimentary, stable and predictable…to establish “a base” from which other life plans may be supported. Yet very few, if any, people in my life were able to prove or demonstrate to me that this was not only a good idea, but that they were actually enjoying any of it. Jobs were routines to be suffered through, Monday through Friday, during the best hours of the day. Hopefully, in the few remaining hours, or on weekends, other more interesting, fun, and engaging activities could be pursued and enjoyed. That, to me, was a terrifying prospect.
The trouble was, however, I had no mentors nor examples of those who lived by their excitement, passions or artful selves. Well, not any who actually earned a living doing these things. It was with endless frustration that I would attempt to find other means of sustaining and supporting myself, to quickly develop the ever-prized “residual income” that would allow me to buy back my time and freedom and thus pursue avenues of genuine fulfilment. One can see immediately how my established life philosophy would again be a hindrance in this self-employment, entrepreneurial adventure. Fail!
Then, along came other excuses to defer and delay getting on with making real plans, anything to avoid committing to a path and to seeing it through to success or failure. If only I could find someone to share it with, to make plans with, to have as a feedback loop and to help me decide on what to do with myself. Extrinsic validation. Happiness from someone else. Or, a mommy or daddy to make decisions for me. (N.B. Parents, resist the urge to coddle your children. Expose them to those who can mentor, challenge, guide and teach them, if you cannot, will not, or are otherwise unable to step up. It’s not about you, nor the compromises and sacrifices you have had to make for them. You chose to have a child. They owe you nothing for that choice. Not ever.)
I thought many times I had made a real commitment to my purpose and my path. I did the business things, prepared the technicalities, produced some products, and honed my skills. But again, follow-through has nothing to do with fanciful intentions and fantastical ideals. Real success is arduous, repetitive, and demands persistence — if only to break through our barriers of limiting beliefs. In fact, holding a vision, meditating on the ultimate dreams and goals, repeating affirmations, and all the other common spiritual bypasses, are inevitably moot. They’re convenient methods of skirting the real work of unpacking, acknowledging, processing and deleting the underlying conditions that keep us spinning our wheels and stunting our growth, expansion and requisite wisdom.
And so, desire remains. Desire burns our insides, unsettles our hearts and minds, and pushes us to repeatedly make impulsive, self-protective, self-sabotaging decisions. Desire asks us again and again to be honest, authentic, vulnerable, and willing to stretch, to break through the old skins, and to shed the constricting shells. At every transition, we are naked and raw and new. We can choose to grow into the greater story, or scurry back into the familiar, regardless of the discomfort.
Desire is the truth, yet how it is imagined may not be the complete reality of its ultimate outcome. Where we are now is cumulative of where we’ve come from. We don’t know what we don’t know, and, inevitably, we color and populate our dreams based on those same limitations.
Be willing to wonder, and if there’s anything to be truly certain of, it is that we cannot imagine just how expansive, fulfilling and breathtaking the scope and scale of what we are capable of can be.
Solvitur ambulando