There Is No Plan B

I'll be honest, I am an options guy.  Whatever it is that I decide to do, I always give myself an out, an escape route, an alternative, call it what you will.  I never let myself get tied down into a situation from which I cannot extricate myself when it's necessary to move on.  I'm committed just as long as it works for me.  Commitment has never really been my forte.  At least, that is one way to look at it, but that is not the complete picture, that is only one part of a greater story.

Let's talk about commitment.  Sure, I've never been married.  My relationship track history does not make for the most pleasurable of readings.  Actually, it would be a pretty short coffee break type of read if I'm  honest.  And when I say coffee, I don't mean Sunday morning lounging around on a sofa with the papers in a cosy, stylish cafe, with notes of jazz mixing with the aroma and the ambiance.  I mean more of a quick, blink and its gone espresso.  I've lived in more places than I care to think about.  I've had plenty of jobs and I've tried quite a few careers.  I know many people in many countries around the world, in some way, I have touched the lives of thousands of people, yet my close friends number only a few.  I can pack all of my belongings into a couple of suitcases that would fit into the back of a car.  That's my flee mentality right there.   

Then there are the things that I have deeply committed to in my life, like the pursuit of my dreams.  Hang on though.  You know what?  Thinking about it right now, I see something more than the pursuit of my dreams.  Suddenly, I see with absolute clarity my entire life history and the pattern therein.  My life has been about more than my dreams, my life has always been about my heart.  It is easy to confuse the two since our true dreams live within the heart, but there is more to the heart than only dreams.  

I have always been emotionally connected.  I never really understood this until quite recently.  It doesn't just mean my emotions are on the surface (although  they generally are), it means that I live through my emotions, I experience life through my emotions.  The heart contains our emotions as well as our dreams.  Our hearts are the windows to our souls, they represent the real, authentic you.  The connection that I have to my heart is incredibly strong.  It is truly my driving force.  Everything I have ever done, every decision I have ever made, has been because of my heart.  The voice of my heart is never quiet.  Sometimes it whispers to me, other times it's like a sonic boom that explodes with such force that tears form in my eyes as a way of releasing the pressure.  Oh yes, I cry a lot, both through laughter and through sadness.  There was a time when I was ashamed of this, when I turned my face to hide my tears, but not any more.  My heart really is everything to me.  In fact, my heart is me and I am my heart.  Our link inseparable.  Even my signature, unknowingly to me for many years until someone pointed it out, contains a heart shape.  I have needed to follow its calling, I could never escape it.  It has led me on some of the most amazing adventures, to witness some of the most incredible things, to meet the most wonderful people, and it has led me to the pits of despair, to complete and utter hopelessness, where only sadness and pain were to be found.

Yet, I would never change my heart, I trust it completely.  I am here right now because of it.  Everything I have ever done has led me to this point and my heart has been leading me here in its own way, showing me all the things I needed to see, teaching me all of the lessons that I needed to learn, leading me to the people that I needed to help me along the way, always guiding me towards the inevitable.  And here I am, finally after all of these years, faced with the inevitability of my life.

My heart is changing.  I can feel it. There has been a subtle shift inside that tells me that things are different to how they used to be.  My heart continues to speak to me and I to listen to its voice, but that voice is no longer urgent and incessant.  It is no longer driving me onwards to the next place I need to be, because I am in that place.  My heart is content.  Tomorrow, I am stepping through the doors of a school classroom for the first time as a trainee school teacher.  This has been my long held dream, the dream to which my heart was always leading me, subtly steering me and guiding me through the turmoil and turbulent waters, giving wind to my sail when the currents ceased, moving me ever on, inexplicably towards my destiny.

I am ready, finally ready to stop moving.  I don't want to move again because I feel that I have come home. It's more than simply that though.  I am ready to commit.  Fully commit to my life, to the life I have always wanted, and the life that I have been denying myself for so long.  I don't mind that it has taken me this long because I know deep down that I was never ready before, even though there were times when I wanted it so bad that I would have done anything to keep it.  I couldn't have kept it before because my heart would have moved me on, just as it did, it had to move me on, I understand that now.  Not this time.  Here I am, tomorrow one of the longest held and one of my greatest dreams turns into reality.  That is not the end because I have several more dreams.  Tomorrow only marks the beginning.  Without tomorrow, I will never realise those other dreams.  To realise those, I have to stop moving, I have to let go of my options, I have to stop looking for the escape route.  And you know what?  I know that I will because my heart tells me that now is the right time.  Commitment doesn't start with a 'C', it starts with me.  And just for once, there is no plan B.

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The Fear of Achieving Your Most Sacred Dream

It is said that fear is the greatest barrier between having a dream and achieving that dream.  There can be no doubt that fear is an extremely paralysing condition.  Fear of failure prevents many of us from reaching out and grasping our dreams, even when all we need do is to stretch out a hand and take the very thing that we have longed desired.  In my own life, there are dreams that I harbour, deep rooted dreams that I long to achieve, and yet I do not.  Why? Like so many others, I too am scared of achieving that which I desire the very most.

What makes this an even more bizarre situation for myself, is that I am fully cognisant of this fact.  I am very self aware, I know how I think and I understand fully how, and why I act in the ways that I do.  I guess a lot of that comes from having lived alone for many years and in having spent a lot of time in my own company.  I'm not sure how healthy that is exactly, and it is not something that I ever really wished for myself, yet, it is the set of circumstances that I have been given, and because of them, I have been able to self reflect, to meditate and to come to a deeper understanding of myself.  Without that time of reflection and meditation, I would not be where I am today, nor would I be the person that I have become.  I am grateful for the path that I have been given and for the opportunity of coming to know my true self.

It has become increasingly apparent to me that I am scared of achieving my deepest held dreams in life.  Those dreams are of finding love and companionship with a partner, becoming a husband and a father, raising a family, and of having my own dog.  With the exception of the dog, which I see as an integral part of the family set up, these things are the very essence of what it means to be a human and the very reasons for which I exist.  Every thing else is superfluous.  Every thing else is like the frame around a masterpiece of a painting.

So, if I know this and understand it, why do I do nothing about it?  What is it that makes me so scared to achieve that which I most desire?  Fear.  It is the fear that the reality will never live up to the picture of the dream that I have created in my mind.  This fear makes me reluctant to commit myself to any one, to any place, to any thing.  I move my life around from one place to another, staying only for a short time, knowing that I am already planning to leave, even before I arrive. In staying only for the short-term, I make it almost impossible to meet any one special, to form strong relationships and friendships.  I don't commit to any one.  And I also create the perfect excuse for not realising my dream. 

How can I possibly find any one special with which to spend my life, if I move location and job every year or so?  It is just not possible.  I tell myself that I move because I like the challenge, I enjoy the adventure, and that I thrive on walking into the unknown.  There is some truth in that.  I do love to travel and to push the boundaries of my own knowledge and to challenge myself.  But what if I only enjoy the travel so much because it means that I never have to commit to my other dreams?

There is another reason why I do not find the right person with which to settle down and start a family.  I purposely sabotage any chance that I have by picking the wrong kind of people.  I only recently discovered this truth late last year, as my last relationship broke up.  I was able to look back on my life and see that each of the women I have selected as potential partners, were in fact completely wrong for me.  Each of them was flawed, a little broken, and I thought the way to love was to fix them, to help them along the road.  And in fixing them, I thought that they would love me all the more.  This was and is a completely false concept and one that I now see as completely wrong.  You cannot mend anyone.  Only they can mend themselves.  No amount of effort can make someone love you.  Love has to grow naturally between two people who are equally matched, who share the same values and goals in life.  I can now see that by selecting women who were wrong for me, I was preventing myself from ever being able to achieve my dreams, and at the same time, I was giving myself the perfect excuse for not doing so.

I know that I am scared of achieving my most longed for dreams.  Possessing that knowledge can only help me to break through the barrier that I have created.  Perhaps it has been necessary for me to travel this path, so that I could learn these lessons and see for myself the error of my ways.  Whatever the reason, it matters not.  All that really matters is that I have arrived at a place, at a time, where I know what needs to be done.  I must overcome my fears, I must take a deep breath, and I must walk tall along the path to the discovery and the attainment of my dream.  After all, dreams are created to be achieved.  Dreams are of no use if they stay a dream and do not transcend into the realm of reality.  A dream is just a dream, but for some of us, a dream can be reality itself.  And I want to be counted as one with those people.

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