Sometimes a tree needs to grow deep roots in order to find the right nutrients.
Challenge
Writing Transformation Challenge 0.1
The longest two weeks of my life are coming to an end. Ok, I’m exaggerating. But man, this was harder than I thought. The idea was to get rid of my notes, but in reality I created so many new ones – of course – because the more I write the more I think and the more I think the more I streamline my insights.
The learning curve is steep, but through this challenge I definitely made the most progress I’ve ever made with any writing experiment. I literally wrote my ass off. But no pain no gain, right?
Nevertheless – I completely under-delivered. This was partly due to my perfectionism, but also because I was quite involved with editing projects and other work.
Instead of 14 articles I published only nine. Six of the 14 days I worked full-time. I visited my parents in my home village and I was living on a campground. I had a lot of social interaction, which drained my energy.
Nonetheless I used every free minute to write – in the subway, waiting for the bus, in the train, before going to sleep…. I spent nearly every spare moment writing.
I’m proud of what I have achieved in these two weeks. This challenge reached depths that I have never suspected and this is all that matters.
Killing The Darlings Fastly
The time restraint of the two weeks definitely forced me to steam down my insights. This made me think sharper. Due to the time pressure I had to ‘kill my darlings’ very fast. What do I mean by that for those who don’t write? I had to shorten and revise my articles faster and this helped me in the process of ‘detaching’ from my writing.
Writing is Growth
I find peace while writing. I love the process of filling a page with my thoughts.
Publishing with the idea to have to revise it ten times afterwards doesn’t satisfy me and it doesn’t improve my writing either. “Learning years are not earning years.” I guess patience is key and as long as I keep going everything is fine.
Pressure shapes a diamond, but it contracts my brain. It is more important to develop a writing routine than forcing myself to press the publishing button. There are things that are just not ‘ripe’ yet.
There is no such thing as ‘finishing an article’. There is always something to add. There will be always ten new articles in the pipeline. And that’s good – as long as the ideas are flowing I’m going to write.
“Writing over publishing”
I wrote between two to ten hours per day, but if I’m tired I better get some sleep. My topics are too fundamental to just pour them out. The range of subjects expands with every article that I write.
It blows my mind what I’m learning from this challenge. Even though my perfectionism screwed up the quantity of my challenge. I’ve never wrote more within two weeks. I feel like a tiny barrier in my head broke. And this is all that matters. I will keep going.
Writing Transformation Challenge 0.0
This is another type of challenge right here. I’m tired of all the notes in my notebook. I’m tired of scrolling through all my endless drafts. Something worthwhile needs time, yes. I got that. But by rewriting an article a hundred of rounds I might lose my original idea and in the end I risk improving for the worse.
Many times I don’t publish only because I think: “That’s not good enough.” “Somebody said this before.” “I can do better.”
Of course I can do better. But when is better good enough? A lot of times I feel like the more I’m trying to improve the more I’m destroying my own writing. I feel like I’m loosing messages that could be worthwhile for somebody.
The other day I went to a writing meetup in Munich. I always like the exchange with other writers. Only now I realize how important it is for my motivation to hear about the broad experience of all these novel authors, script writers, ‘conceptioners’ and comic scribblers.
This time I met Marie from France again and we were talking about a phenomenon: Every so often a book doesn’t get published, because the author changes his or her mind. “I heard this from many publishers.”, Marie contemplated. “You better publish quickly before you can change your mind.”, she encouraged me to silent the judge before it can execute.
The suspicion is close that I’m not brave enough. “I have the feeling you are hiding yourself.”, a couple of weeks ago a friend and potential work partner pointed out to me. And yes, it is true – I am hiding. I’m afraid to publish.
But this blog here is not about me. There are millions of people going through the same things like me – they suffer from anxiety, depression, a broken heart, insecurity, self-doubts, pms, every topic that I address … I have to stop considering my writing as ‘my baby’.
It is my baby in a way, of course. But why am I writing? I’m writing because I want to change perspectives. I change my perspective by reading books, listening to lectures and talking to people. Realistically I’m nothing more than a catalyst of what I read and what I experience in the real life.
These experiences are not unique to me. What is unique is the way everybody processes these experiences. I’m doing it in this way here. Writing is my therapy, creativity is my valve.
I most likely experience real freedom while filling an empty page with my own words. Unfortunately a state of flow is still rather an exception than a rule.
Being a writer is a gift and a curse – however I need to put myself out there in order to fulfill the purpose.
Why do I call it “Writing Transformation Challenge”? I want to develop my own writing style. But by polishing my articles to a point of unrecognizability I kill my style. With this challenge I want to see if pressure makes the diamond…
The goal is to publish a post every day the next 14 days. Day one will be tomorrow.
Micro Habit Challenge 5.2: Every Thought Is A Judgement
Okay, another week of this micro habit challenge had passed. I have to admit that two weeks are a bit short to really understand what is going on. But something is going on – and it is something big.
I figured out that I’m mainly judging myself – and not other people. What gnaws away my energy or leads to confusion are the voices in my head that are telling me what to do, what to want and how to act. Yeah, it is probably not even one voice, but many. (And yeah, I’m seeing a therapist;)
Instead of asking myself what I really want from a situation or – and that is very painful to admit – from my own life I’m already assuming things that I should want. Or after a situation I judge about myself and tell myself how I should have behaved or reacted.
Hm, okay, here we come to the difficult question: Who is the judge in my head and how can I make him shut up? (Thanks, Alan Watts;)
Well, first I thought this is a very tough question. I could study this question from all perspectives – from a psychological, a spiritual, a neuro-scientific point of view. But in reality it is that simple: I just tell this speaker to shut up. I have to jam the judge.
And this is what I’m doing right now. As soon as a thought arises I tell my brain to shut up. This sounds a bit weird – to me too. I’m trying to understand with this blog and on this whole life journey where the pain is coming from and then I’m telling the voice inside of my head to shut up instead of listen to it? It is a bit of a contradiction.
But only on the first sight. Since I’m able to think it seems I’ve been thinking quite a lot. I gave my mind the permission to define my status quo and my mind doesn’t do a good job. It was a long process to come to the conclusion that my thoughts are might be not very helpful when it comes to live and prosper.
My thoughts are telling me so much bullshit that it is more work to separate the wheat from the chaff than turning them off completely and switch into ‘doer-mode’.
I reached a point where I’m going this far: Every thought is a judgement.
I was listening to Krishnamurti the other day. It was one of those casual super chill sundays when the way between bed and couch is the largest range of motion of the day (Well, I have these days potentially at every weekday.).
Krishnamurti asked: “When was the last time you looked at a mountain without calling it a mountain?” – Honestly I didn’t know this challenge is going to get this deep. By putting something in words we are already judging.
We project our definition of reality on the outside world. This definition is based on which language we speak, which senses are accessible to ‘make sense’ of reality and if we ‘feel’ comfortable, angry or sad. We are MAKING sense of the world by judging.
Our thoughts are created by the words we have learnt. These words define how we see the world. But is this the world or is it just a paper cut of the world?
Imagine you are a lizard. What would the world look like for you? You might live on a clearing of a forest. The furthest you see is to the edge of the woods. Would you say a lizard is not fully alive? Would you say a lizard needs more to be alive? No. The life is right there. The lizard is alive. The life is within the lizard. And so it is in us.
There is definitely no truth behind our words if we are telling ourselves that we need to do more, be more, be better, be stronger…. At the maximum there is interpretation of what could be useful for us (Whatever that means.).
And what does this have to do with judging? Everything. Judging is interpreting our behaviour or the behaviour of others and valuing it according to ‘our’ worldview.
When we judge we are clamping reality into the vice our own worldview. We trap ourselves if we are only listening to our mind.
Of course – on many levels the ability to judge helps us to live. We are able to cross a street without being hit by a car. We are able to buy food that keeps us alive. We are able to drink water when we are thirsty, because we are able to connect the dots.
We interpret the signals of our body subconsciously in order to satisfy our physical needs. But which needs do we fulfill if we interpret every signal that our mind flungs out? The need to impress? The need to prove something? How many times are these needs really our needs? And are these needs crucial for our survival?
I can answer this only for myself with a clear ‘no’. The only secret is to let life be as it is – imperfect, full of struggle, but at the core pretty basic: live, love, sleep, eat.
Okay, now I got a bit far off. Back to the challenge: I figured out that this type of examination on a “conscious level” helps me to cement all these ideas in my mind. My subconsciousness does the rest. It conveys the idea of “not knowing” to the core of my being.
This life is not about following an ideology, but about observing my own point of view. The problem is that we are getting lost in concepts instead of thinking for our own self. We are trying to fit ourselves into the right box. And this is how we are getting lost in confusion. Because all these boxes don’t fit properly, because they are only cheap replicas of reality.
If we look at things, including ourselves, like we look at it for the very first time of our life these things get a complete new dynamic. So the key would be to recognize every second, every moment of our lives as a unique moment that passes. And in this moment we need to do what feels good for us.
We only struggle if we interpret all the time, if we take things personal all the time, if we want more or if we put everything that we see in relation with our own life.
It absolutely doesn’t matter what other people do or think and when I say other people I mean ALL people, the whole society, the rest of the world…. Even what you tell yourself doesn’t matter. Without judgement there is no struggle.
Nevertheless: This whole judgement thing is so freakin’ hard. Just now I am facing the toughest challenges ever. This cage in my head is not created by me. I’m conditioned. I can change it to a certain extend, but I can’t escape from it completely.
But what I can do is ignoring it or – even better – using it for higher purposes. But for this I have to dig deeper.
The question is: Am I really prepared to look deep down into the nature of my own psyche? Am I willing to keep walking into the dark corners of myself? Am I willing to keep changing?
Micro Habit Challenge 4.2 – Mindfulness beats Social Media
Another challenge is coming to an (happy) end. To be fair – it turned out to not be such a big challenge at all as I’m quite involved in ‘real life’ at the moment. I think I have to make the challenges a lot harder from now on.
So what did I learn?
- I’m actually not as distracted by social media as I thought. Haha, it seems I had a bit of a negative image of myself here. I didn’t really have to change much. All I changed was, as I said – investing the time I spent in social media in other stuff (learning languages, writing, talking to people, reading, going for a walk…) But it turned out: I’m doing these things anyways and flightmode is my best friend.
- I turned the 30 minutes ON social media into – what I called – “The 30 minutes of mindfulness”. I’m very ill-disciplined when it comes to exercising or meditating regularly. So I decided to leave it open and just set my alarm a little earlier to make sure I have time for any of the above. I either do some chanting, meditating, some yoga or any other type of stretching or workout depending on how I feel – maybe I even go for a walk around the garden or block – depending where I am. It forces me to observe myself before really getting out of bed. “How do I feel today?” is a good question to start on. Also it helps me to set an intention for the day. “How do I want to feel?” – My answer is mainly quite simple: “good.” What does this have to do with social media? Actually nothing. But! I realized repeatedly:
- Tadaaa: I’m happier WITHOUT checking instagram every couple of hours or minutes. It’s such a relieve for my – anyways – strained brain to not to see all these perfectly curated pictures. And also: Without feeling the need to reply to every message whatsoever…
- Also: In a way this exercise was a good reminder to keep cultivating self-love. Questioning is my tool and I’m the master of my mind not the the victim of my devices.
Well, what do I do now? I just continue doing the things I do instead of not-doing.
Micro Habit Challenge 4.1 – Social Media Substitution
The first week of my challenge is over and probably this is the most successful micro habit challenge so far. Okay – maybe I didn’t challenge myself enough then.
I found out that social media is not my problem anymore, woohoo. My problem are in many ways not the things that I do, but the things that I don’t do. So, instead of ‘being on social media’ for 30 minutes I decided to do something useful instead. I have to address the problem slightly different…
What did I do?
- Quickly I figured out that my thumb has this stupid automatism. So what I needed to do was to remove the apps (Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp) to another screen of my phone. É voila – I haven’t touched instagram since roughly one week. Apparently it is not that urgent.
- I figured out that instead of saying: I reduce my social media time, I simply have to find a useful substitution. So what I’m doing now is: I invest the 30 minutes in practicing italian right now. I placed all the ‘useful’ apps like my notepad and duolingo on my homescreen now. Facebook I check only every now and then for a few minutes a day.
- My biggest let’s call it ‘time invest’ is actually sharing my life with my friends on WhatsApp. This also holds me back a little bit from living in the now. So, what I do now before sending a message, I ask myself, do I really need to share this? A lot of times my initial answer is no. Plus: If I want to tell somebody something, I think about the message a little longer and might even write an e-mail. This whole ‘instant-reaction’-thing bothers me since a very long time anyways.
Why am I doing these challenges?
Already by looking at my behaviour I change it. The so called observer effect doesn’t only apply in quantum physics. By surveilling my actions on my phone I change my behavior automatically. This way with a little bit of discipline it is probably possible to achieve everything.
It’s a little bit like quitting smoking. Already the question: ‘Do you really have to smoke now?’ potentially triggers a series of positive alternative actions. ‘Why not go for a walk instead?’ or say ‘hi’ to the stranger at the bus station, where you are standing right now. Life could be so simple, if we’d just live it.
Micro Habit Challenge 4.0 – Social Media Breakdown
“The one who knows something, but doesn’t act accordingly only knows it partially.” This is the rough translation of a quote by french philosopher J. M. Guay, which I found in “Geistestraining durch Achtsamkeit” by Nyānaponika, a Buddhist monk. [I haven’t found the correct english equivalent title yet.]
As I found out in the past changing my behaviour takes time. At the beginning of my ‘journey’ I tried to achieve all at once – I still do on many levels. Slowly I understand I have to take one step at a time in order to climb that mountain.
What I found out recently is that I still distract myself with so much stuff from achieving my daily goals (which adds up to my overall life goals). The thing I still abuse the most by far is social media.
I keep telling myself that facebook is important to keep up my social connections and instagram inspires me.
BUT – let’s face it – mostly it holds me back from living in the moment – the only thing that I really want to achieve in my life. Additonally to that I’m wasting my time instead of investing it into articles like this one. Plus – I become a victim of my device.
I get caught up in reaction to the notifications on my phone. And this is unacceptable.
It’s time for another micro habit challenge. Here we go Nyānaponika. I will get there eventually.
So – what am I gonna do?
Limit my time on social media (including whatsapp) on 30 minutes daily for the next two weeks – man, writing this down it sounds a lot. But probably I reduce the time I spend on my phone already around 200%. Yeees, I have to be clear with this – no matter how painful or emberassing.
I don’t want to push too hard and still want to take the time to answer messages.
What had changed already?
– Today is already day two. Yesterday was easy. Already the decision was liberating and I was in flightmode allday – actually I spend only a couple of minutes online – good start, haha.
– I already feel like having some control back. I want to use my phone and don’t let my phone use me. Technology has advantages and that’s why I want to keep using them.
– Limiting the amount of time helps me to prioritise length and content of my messages. Let’s see if the quality of my overall conversations increases by the end of the first week.
Why I’m doing this?
Interestingly my experience shows that writing this stuff down here on this blog helps me to manifest things.
About a year ago I pointed out “I suck at meditation”. And guess what – since I found the “valve” I get access to this gap between me and my thoughts once in a while – more and more often over the time. I don’t have a regular practice but I practice multiple times a week at various times.
This makes me more than gratful – thanks Nyānaponika – or better say Erich Fromm for introdrucing me to this teacher of mindfulness.
Cheers, I let you know how it went next week.
Accept The Journey
“Accept your journey.” My brain flung out this call in a moment of clarity the other day. The advice was actually addressed to a friend who is suffering from a broken heart. I wanted to encourage him to move forward despite his desperation. Quickly I realized the wisdom behind that simple phrase.
Accepting the journey means accepting the challenges and not questioning them. “Why me?” is always the wrong question. Why you? Because it is your journey. It’s your life. Everybody has their own battles to fight. Some of them might look more brutal, some more relentless than others. But everybody’s obstacles are custom-tailored to their individual power.
Way too often we are taking our own lives and our challenges way to serious. But they are actually a part of us, our life, our purpose. Challenges are not there to punish, but to instruct us.
Massive jolts are rattling my old believe patterns these days. It seems like finally I’m harvesting the fruits of my self-discovery trip. At the same time I’m paying the price with confusion and more questions than ever. What I miss is the fact, that this is my journey. This is what I chose. These are the consequences. This is my way.
Insecurity is what I bought with freedom, dependence on other people is what I ordered with being a nomad. Too many options lead to confusion. Aloneness is what I chose. And my destiny? Is already right here.
This is my path and my destiny. The challenges that I’m facing are the bumpy road conditions. If the road gets narrow it is time to slow down and not to speed up. There is no need to rush. Life happens at its own speed.
Instead of enjoying the journey way too often I’m rushing towards an unknown destination. I’m rushing and rumbling around – chasing what? In the meantime I see the so called “life” rolling by out of the corner of my eye. What if I miss important waypoints? It is time to slow down and take the time to actually look at the map, listen to the intuition (as long as it takes) and just enjoy the view for a moment.
In the meantime? I’m fulfilling my purpose. People expressing me their gratitude. My friends are showing me their trust. Strangers are opening up to me for no reason. I can SEE that I’m making a difference. I published 56 posts on this blog, but I’m still think “I’m not writing anything.”
The path of least resistance is a well-trodden one. Walking your own way demands dedication. I chose my own path and I gonna stick with it at all costs. Do I have a choice? I don’t think so.
“If life gives you a mountain, put on your boots and hike it.”
Fail Fast, Learn Quick
You are standing on the edge of a cliff. Beneath your feet the blue of the ocean is hypnotizing you. Waves are breaking powerfully on the rocks. “You can do that!” – “Can I do that?” – “You just dive in” -“What if I crash?” – The voices in your head are fighting a running battle. Finally with the heartbeat up to your chin you jump. A rush of adrenaline is taking your breathe before you plunge smoothly into the water.
For a fraction of a second you lose your sense of direction. One moment later you are already back on the surface. A smile arises from your inside while you are swimming with ease back to the boulders you climbed before. “The next time I gonna do a cannonball.”, you think to yourself with a sense of fulfillment.
Jumping down these five meters was just a matter of overcoming your fear of failure. By making a leap you became aware of your true capabilities.
It is by diving into the unknown that we learn. We are learning to swim, we are learning to jump off cliffs (or three meter towers), we are learning to interact with others, we are learning a different language, new skills. At the beginning we are making mistakes: We might land on our belly the first time we jump off the cliff. Or we can’t wrap our head around the verb classifications of a new language. But we are getting there slowly. Our brain gets there, because it creates new connections everytime we supposedly “fail”.
A long time I’d rather do nothing than doing something wrong. What I didn’t understand was that I only learn through my mistakes. More and more in the process of learning to appreciate my own suffering I’m understanding that this “suffering” is just the pain I feel after making a what I consider “wrong” decision. Or it is caused by this fear of making the wrong decision.
At the moment I’m fighting a lot of battles with myself about which way to go, which job to keep, which friends to meet or which new destination to target. Whether if it is on a personal level or on a professional level – these thoughts are stealing my energy and shattering my last nerve.
What I’m practicing is the acceptance of this pain AND the ability to make a decision anyways. Yes, making a decision not the (the only right) decision.
Mistakes are invariable in the process of making anything better (a life or a product). To put it differently – failure is inevitable on the way to success. The inventor of the light bulb Thomas Edison and his team tested around 3000 (!!) different designs for the light bulb before they found a solid solution. It took years.
Without failure also personal growth is not possible. We don’t learn, if we do everything perfect all the time. Because if we do everything perfect we only adjust to the demands, but we never actually seize our full potential.
I’m repeating myself: What had always been holding me back from achieving personal or professional goals was my fear of failure!
Now I’m trying a different approach: I prototype my life. I define, I try, I fail, I improve – “trial and error”. How ever you want to call it – the idea is the same. A prototype is not perfect. It improves in iterations and so does my life.
Okay, so far so good. That’s easier said than done. But how are we going to put this in practice?
1. Don’t be Attached To The Image You Have Of Yourself
We don’t realise that we become the slaves of our own thoughts by saying: “This is just how I am.” These thoughts are planted into our head – either by ourselves or by our surrounding. Maybe we are still attached to the idea we had about ourselves when we were twelve years old?
You don’t consider yourself as creative? Maybe you just didn’t find the right way to express yourself or you simply have the wrong idea about “somebody who is creative” in your head? You are not a rational thinker? Only because you spoiled your physics exam in school doesn’t mean you can never be an engineer. The most important thing is to understand, that these thoughts are not us – even if we are the ones telling them to ourselves. What if you have skills you never thought of?
2. Don’t Fall In Love With Your Ideas
There is a rule in the method of design thinking (and other lean/agile working methods) that links to the written above. “Don’t fall in love with your ideas”. We have this overall image about ourselves in our head. On the other hand we also vision the necessary improvements: Things that need to be done in order to become the person we are supposed to be being.
“When I achieve this and this I gonna be happy.” “If I was just a little bit more rational/outgoing/talkative/had more knowledge/more friends my life would be perfect” or “If I just had that much money, I would be able to live a happy life.” Don’t get me wrong – it is good, no it is neccesary to have goals in life, but by focussing on only the things that we already have in mind we might miss the opportunity to find something else that lights up our heart. With this attitude we close ourselves towards our own truth. So, don’t fall in love with your ideas and stay flexible.
3. Be Willing To Change
What teaches me the most in life? Basically the situations where I let go of old patterns. The moments when I try something new. The moments when I have to adapt to a new situation. In these moments I can literally feel how my ability to live life properly (whatever that means, I will think about it) had improved. Exposing myself to adversity, trying new jobs, learning new skills – this is what really teaches me the most.
“Invent yourself new” – is not only a slogan from the fashion industry (?). Sticking with the same hobbies, the same interests, the same people can only lead to stagnation. Our brain literally needs stimulation to build new connections. Once in a while it is important to do something where we once said “I’m not the type for this.” We might fail, we might don’t like it, but if we never try we will never know.
4. Be Open For Advice
The great thing about living amongst other human beings is that we can learn from each other. Everyone of us makes their own experiences and creates their personal reality.
In order to broaden our horizon we need to listen to others. We can’t change our perspective by standing at the same point of view. Sometimes others know better what we are capable of. A lot of times we limit ourselves with the idea about what we can and what we can’t do. If we take our desires and perspectives too seriously we obstruct the outlook for new opportunities.
5. Drop This F*cking Perfectionism
… and cultivate a healthy failure culture. Aiming for perfection leads nowhere. Nothing will ever be perfect or to put it differently: everything is already perfect. With this approach every new start becomes easier. There is nothing to achieve, there is only something to learn. Don’t blame yourself for being a failure only because things don’t turn out how you wish. Accept your mistakes as being a part of the process.
6. Be Willing To Start Again And Again And Again…..
“Nobody said it was easy….” In order to improve anything in our life we need patience. Sometimes I ask myself: “Will I ever learn?” I feel like I’m doing the same mistakes over and over again. But with this question I already hold myself back from learning. Instead I have to acknowledge: “Hmm, again the same mistake. What have I learnt this time?” The lessons we face are always confronting us for a reason. The same mistakes are just reminding us to keep digging. This is the peaceful war with ourselves.
Conclusion
While we grow older we lose our sense of adventure a little bit. We are trying to predict the future by considering risks, opportunities and values of a decision. A lot of times we are trying to make “the right decision” instead of allowing ourselves to leave things a little bit more open.
What if we admit that we can’t predict the outcome of a decision anyways? Instead we remain in a state of fear. This fear is leaving us in a state of faint. I don’t say we need to fail on purpose, but I say we should allow ourselves more often to jump off the cliff into a deep blue ocean of the unknown.
“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” – Denis Waitley
Black, White, All Or Nothing?
Pizza or pasta? Tea or coffee? Should I stay or should I go? Over and over I catch myself paralyzed by the same thinking-pattern: I’m searching for the best solution, the perfect answer, the right decision, the only path that leads to happiness.
I beat myself up over and over again for having not enough discipline – for not being “straight” enough. If I’d just learn another language/did more yoga/became a software developer/travelled to place xy… my life would be perfect. Violently I’m pondering every possibility. The restaurant (Pizza or Pasta?) is just one venue of competition. The toughest fights I stage within myself.
“Should I start a new job?” “Should I work this or that job? “Should I travel to Portugal or Indonesia?” – to name just a few of my ridiculous first-world-problems.
Why am I struggling so much with making decisions? And why am I beating myself down for not doing the “right” things? I have a suspicion: It is all in my head! The problem is, that my mind still wants to convince me that there is one perfect decision. If I’d just consider ALL available data I couldn’t go wrong. But you know what? There is no such thing like “all data”. How can we know the outcome of a decision in advance? How do we know who we are going to meet, who might changes our “path” in an irreversible way? How do we know which outlook awaits us behind the next curve of this windy road called life?
A lot of times I’m trying so hard to make the “right” decision that I’m loosing sight of what I actually want. Sometimes I want none of the things, I think I want.
My own thoughts keep me trapped somewhere between past and future – but for sure they hold me back from the now. Often I’m loosing contact with the present moment completely. And wait a minute – this moment is all that we have!
It is time for me to really accept that there is no “right” decision – for sure not when it comes to choosing pizza or pasta, but what about the “real” decisions? Where do I want to live? Should I change my job? Should I quit? Travel? Get pregnant? Break up? Get married? Stay single? And what exactly should I do?
The word “should” already implies that the answers to these questions often enough are not mine. They are the answers of society, my family, my friends or my “peer-group”. (if this is a word)
The truth is that we have to create our own reality by walking our own way. As long as we are searching for the “right” answer or our “recipe to happiness” we forget to live.
We will probably never find what we are looking for – but what we will find is even more thrilling and beautiful: surprises, connections, friendships – the pleasure of the unknown.
If we stop thinking black or white we will discover how colorful this world is.
So how am I going to overcome this narrow decision-making-fight? I’m following my excitement by doing what I enjoy doing, by following my heart and dropping my thoughts completely.
The difficult part is to give an ear to my heart, my inner voice. The chatterbox in my head still likes to dominate, but my heart wins with trust and patience.