Heed The Calling Of Your Heart

I started to write something this morning and then I had to deleted all of the characters that were before my eyes.  I was not writing truthfully and I was not writing honestly.  Writing for me, has to come straight from my heart.  To write authentically, I have to be lost.  Lost to the voice of my heart.  If I start to write something and I find that I am stopping every minute or so, then I am writing from my head.  I am over thinking what it is I want to say.  And if that begins to happen, then I am not writing what I truly want to say.  The heart always reveals the truth of all things. 

The heart. Dear precious heart.  Where would I be without your voice?  Certainly not here, certainly not typing away to no person in particular, certainly not having experienced everything that I have experienced in the past six years and seven months.  How different would my road be if I were to go back, if I were able to make a change to my past life and alter a decision, where would I be now?  I would be living a lie.  I would be living a half life.  A life in which I would be telling myself I am happy, trying everyday, every moment to believe what I was telling myself.  But knowing that it was not true.  Knowing deep inside that I had betrayed myself.  That I was a coward.  Or would I?

If I had not commenced my journey, then how would I know what it is that I missed?  I wouldn't, I couldn't know.  In the first few days after taking the decision to stay with my comfortable and secure life, where everything makes sense, I would have been wondering whether I had made the right decision in saying no.  I would have questioned it over and over again.  As days turned into weeks, I would have begun to tell myself that I made the right decision, it was for the best.  I would have begun to find happiness with the things that I had in my life: my car; my apartment; my friends; my family; the programs I watched on TV; my commute to work; my colleagues at the office; the chance to look forward to Friday, even though it was still only Sunday evening.  Weeks turn quickly to months and with those months, I would have started to forget all about the decision.  I would have more important things to worry about: a presentation I had to give to some clients; would the car pass its annual inspection; which tie I should wear; did the girl in accounting notice me.  Yes, the very important things in life.  Months soon become a year and, as one year turns its page over, so another commences. 

Everything would be fine for a while but sooner or later, there would be no stopping the voice of my heart.  It would come back again, only louder, more urging than before.  It would tell me that I had wasted more time, that I should act now before it becomes too late.  In the quiet moments just before sleep it would whisper to me of far off places, of walking  in forests and along golden beaches, of seeing mountains with their tops covered in a blanket of snow.  I would fall asleep but no longer would I sleep as soundly.  I would begin once more to remember the decision that I had taken long before. I would once more wonder whether I was a coward.  I would once more have to decide whether to heed the calling of my heart, or to bury its voice and silence it again. 

Only now, it is no longer as easy for me to go off in search of my adventure and follow my heart.  Now I have more reasons to stay in my current life: my career that has continued to progress; I have more possessions; I might have a family of my own; my parents have grown old and need looking after; my brother and sister have children; my friends; I have even more security and comfort than I had before.  So, I have no alternative but to once more silence the voice of my heart and the process starts over one more time.  Days become weeks...

And then there would be silence from my heart until one special day, when I am sitting in my comfortable chair, in a well manicured and kept garden and I feel something I have never felt before.  I feel that my heart is dying, that my time has come.  In the moments between this realisation and the inevitable drawing of my final breath, I look back upon my life.  I look back upon everything that I achieved and with a feeling of loss, sadness and regret, I realise that my life was never fulfilled because I denied my heart and with that denial, I was never able to follow the path of my dreams, the path that would have led me to true happiness, contentment and on a voyage of discovery.

I think that what I am writing this morning, is that I cannot deny my heart, now that I have heard its voice.  My heart is my friend, my guide, my companion.  Although I do not claim to be religious, I am spiritual.  If there is a god, then it is my belief that this force for good exists in each and every one of our hearts.  In my heart is where I find peace.  In my heart is where I find the miracles. 

What I have written today reminds me of something I wrote back in 2006, when I was staying on the Perhentian Islands of Malaysia.  I am going to share it.

By the way, it has just occurred to me that all that I have written this morning, is intended for me, as a reminder than even though I have begun the journey along my own path, I must never stop heeding the voice and call of my heart.  It does not matter what I have done, it only matters what I do.

Peter Waits
Peter sits and waits
I will change he says
Time passes
Like the cars passed the window
Each one a journey
To a different destination
And still he waits
Things will be different
Next year, next month
Peter grows older
He does not realise it
But life is running
It never stops
Still he waits
I am still young he thinks
But the young look at him
And through their youthful eyes
They see an old man
The years that were ahead
Now lay behind
Each one just like the next
Full of hope, of promise
But nothing realised
Peter has waited
Peter has sat his whole life
Poised for action
Tensed like a bow string
The heart cannot take this
It can only wait so long
Like the string of the bow
Too much tensity and waiting
And it breaks
Nothing lasts forever
No one can wait forever
Peter gets up to change
To begin a new life
But his heart is old
His legs no longer work
And his heart long ago
Ceased its dreaming
Peter sits by the window
And wonders what might have been.