Do You Believe In Signs?

The other day at work, I was talking with the hotel concierge in the lobby, when an elderly guest approached.  After he had finished speaking with the concierge, he turned to me and told me that he had thoroughly enjoyed watching me teach scuba diving the day before.  He told me that he thought I was a very good teacher, because I possessed the right qualities for it: knowledge and skills in my subject matter, enthusiasm, and patience.  We talked some more and he told me his name was John and that he was himself a teacher of many years standing.  I thanked him for his compliments and I told him that they meant a great deal to me, as I was thinking of going into teaching formally as a high school teacher.  What he said to me next was the sign for which I had been seeking.      

For many of us, making tough decisions is a difficult process.  I know that at times, despite everything that my heart is yelling at me, despite all of its urges, I feel completely unsure and afraid of the consequences, afraid of the unknown that lies down the particular path I am considering.  Even if I know and understand the logic and rationale behind the decision that must be taken, I still feel a deep sense of trepidation.  When this occurs, I feel the need to seek out something illogical, something mystical, something spiritual.  It is as though some primeval sense demands it of me.  I start to look for something that will show to me the rightness of the decision that I am going to make.  I begin the search for a sign.

A sign.  It shows us the way to go, it tells us the direction to take.  Without them, we would quickly become lost.  Imagine driving down the highway and not having any sign posts to show you which exit you needed to take.  You could guess and you might be right, but until you turned off and tried one of the exits, you would encounter uncertainty and doubt.  Life is like this too.  Throughout our lives, we are taught to read signs of all kinds.  A smile means that someone is happy, dark clouds gathering on the horizon means rain, a feeling of thirst means we are dehydrated.  To get through life, we need to know the signs, to be able to read them, and we need to be able react to them.

For sometime now, I have had the idea of becoming a teacher running through my mind.  To tell the truth, it's been there for many years as an idle thought, perhaps nothing more than a curiosity, since I was ten years old.  More recently, it has begun to turn into something more, it has started to grow wings.  This is an idea that keeps on coming back to me, time and time again, it seems like I cannot rid myself of it and it cannot rid itself of me.  If I were to go through with the idea, it would mean a significant life change and a commitment.  It would mean turning my back on my current life and turning instead to something completely new - a path that is unknown and dark to me.  I am afraid of this idea because of what it means, but at the same time, I also believe that it is something that I must do, something important for my life.  To help me with my decision, I have been on the look out for a sign to show me the right way.

The other day at the hotel, John came as the bearer of that sign.  In those words that he spoke to me, I knew the rightness of the path that lies ahead of me.  We cannot create the signs, they have to come to us of their own free will.  There are days when we are desperate to find the answer for which we urgently seek and we see nothing.  Those are the times when we feel as though we have been deserted and left to our own devices.  Sometimes that is a sign in itself.  There are certain decisions that can only be made between you and your heart.  There need not be any other external factor involved.  Other times, we look and we are rewarded.  I remember a time when I was alone in Malaysia.  I had just separated from my partner and travel partner and we had decided to go our own ways.  I was travelling back to the Perhentians Islands to continue my scuba diving education.  On the boat from the mainland across the South China Sea to the islands, I felt lonely, sad and afraid of what was happening.  I can remember looking over the side of the boat, towards the bow to watch the white water that sprayed up as the boat cut through the ocean.  There, in the spray I saw small rainbows, brilliant colours of arcing light that just hung there, motionless, as if they had been waiting for me.  It was the sign that the decision that I had taken was the right one, I felt a sense of peace sweep over me, and my heart felt at ease.

Sometimes we misread the signs, we see only those things that only exist in our own truth of a situation.  How many times have I made the mistake of believing that a girl I liked very much and was giving me lots of attention, was attracted to me?  I figure that because of the attention, this girl must really be in to me, so I decide to ask her for a date.  The reality is that she is only being her usual friendly self and is this way with everyone.  I misread the signs because I saw only what I wanted to see, not the reality and the real truth of the situation.  I am completely unable to read women - period.  They remain a complete enigma and a mystery to me, but that is for a different post.

A sign reinforces our point of view and helps us to feel more comfortable with our decision.  Whether we like it or not, humans have a deep need to establish a spiritual connection, to believe that something exists that is greater than ourselves.  We are part of this great mystery of life, we are part of the miracle.  Signs hep us because they meet our psychological need for reassurance, that a greater power is willing us to go in a certain direction, that we are being helped along our path.  Maybe none of this is correct.  Perhaps it is all too easy to make the pieces fit, to look back with hindsight and to make certain things become the truth.  Would my life have turned out exactly the same if I had not seen the rainbows that day?  Perhaps it would, perhaps it would not.  It really does not matter.  All that matters is that I believe that life places signs in front of us to help us, to guide us, to show us the way that we need to go.

The other day at the hotel, John was the bearer of my sign.  When I told him that I had long thought of becoming a school teacher and that I was now seriously considering the idea, his words held meaning for me.  "It is your calling", he said.  And you know something?  I truly believe that what he said is right.  John is an angel, a messenger that came to me, that spoke the words that my heart needed to hear.  I do believe in signs, do you? 

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Life On The One True Path

When you're doing something that you truly enjoy, something that gives you passion for life, it is impossible to stop smiling. This is because your heart, soul, body and mind are all in unison and they have truly become one thing only. And that one thing is love.

This is exactly what will happen to you when you walk your one true path.  There are going to be many moments when you find yourself smiling, laughing, skipping, dancing or singing for no other reasons than simply because you can, and simply because you feel like it.  There will be moments when you feel such an up-welling of positive life energy, that people will look at you as if you are mad, and perhaps you are!  After all, only mad people give up the normal daily grind of life to go off and follow their hearts in search of adventure, and to seek out true meaning for themselves - right?  When you are on the path, even doing jobs that might be considered trivial, mundane, or even viewed as being beneath you back in the ordinary world, will become important and integral parts of your life and you'll face them with joy, gusto and happiness, rather than doing them begrudgingly or with a sense of resentment.

The first time I can recall experiencing this, was during my time in Malaysia.  It must have been sometime around April 2006 and it had been perhaps five or six months since I had left my job working at IBM, where I had held several management positions.  One morning, I was sweeping the sand off the decking of the dive centre where I was training to become a PADI Dive Master.  I can remember vividly, looking along the arc of perfect white sand, lined with palm trees that was Long Beach, on the island of Kecil Perhentian.  In this moment, I smiled and laughed to myself in the realisation that I had never been happier than right then and right there.  I laughed to myself at how my life had changed so drastically in those few months.  I had exchanged designer suits, shirts, silk ties and expensive shoes for a pair of board shorts.  I had exchanged my daily commute through traffic for an easy walk along the beach.  I had exchanged my office for a beach.  And I had exchanged my laptop for a broom.  This was the first time that I knew I was walking my one true path and I felt an up-welling of pure and simple joy that I was unable to prevent.  It did not matter that I was only sweeping sand off of a decking, because sweeping sand was a necessary part of living my dream.

This joie de vivre permeates into everything that you do.  It is like an infectious disease that will invade your body and mind and it will invade the fabric of your very soul.  Whenever I am at work, or around the customers that come to scuba dive or snorkel with us, I become animated and alive.  I smile and laugh a lot, I engage with them and take a personal interest in them and their enjoyment.  I want to know where they come from and how it is there.  I enjoy exchanging stories and anecdotes about places and experiences.  I make silly jokes and I try to keep them entertained.  I do not ever feel like I have to do this, or that I am working.  I don't have to think about it.  It comes naturally and I know it comes from within my soul.  I do this for no other reason than because I feel alive and completely at one with my heart.  I am unable to stop doing it because the energy and love that I feel inside of myself needs to flow out and be released back to the universe.  When my heart sings, it is impossible not to sing along to its beat, to its rhythm and to its song.

It is not the same for every person who does the same job that I do now.  Some people will find talking to customers difficult, they will view it as part of the job that needs to be done because ultimately, we are in the entertainment industry.  They might resent that they have to lift heavy scuba tanks up and down the beach, sweep sand, or have to wash and rinse scuba gear at the end of each day's diving.  And this job is not every person's dream job.  I changed my life and discovered my own dream.  I know what it is like to walk on the path that is not your own because I did that for thirty five years.  But because this is my dream, when I am doing it, I feel completely at one with the universe. 

There will always be moments and there will be days when things do not go so well.  Even on the one true path you are still going to hit bumps in the road and suffer setbacks.  This is the inevitability of life.  Without setbacks we can never learn the lessons that are necessary to progress in life and to evolve our spirits.  My life has not always been easy.  In fact, I would never describe it as easy.  It is too easy to look at someone who seems to always carry a positive outlook in life and to think that they had it easy, or that they have always enjoyed good fortune.  This will never be the truth.  I suffered when I was young from being overweight and all of the problems associated with it and as I have written in previous blogs, I still carry those scars with me to this day.  However, I no longer recall that I was overweight or relive the days of suffering from teasing in the school yard.  What I choose to remember is that I had the strength to change my life and to do something about my physical appearance.  That taught me an incredibly valuable lesson: that I was able to accomplish anything that I put my mind to and I possessed the inner strength to change.  I have spent much of my adult life alone and without the love of a partner or companion on my journey.  That still causes me a lot of anguish and I wonder often about whether I will ever find that special person to share my life with.  There are times when I think about how alone I have been, or how much time I have lived without the love of someone special in my life and I cry.  But I tell myself that she will come when I am ready, she will come when I reach that point along my path.  I have moments during my working day when I need to deal with difficult situations or with difficult people.  I have a boss and just like all bosses, he can be a jerk at times and leave you wondering what is going on.  In my old life, even the smallest of setbacks could quickly snowball into something much bigger.  Each setback seemed to add to the previous and it could sometimes seem like an endless stream of them.  I would torment myself about being alone and without love in my life.  I would struggle to understand my purpose in life and I would ask myself why was I even here?  My life held no real meaning for me.  It was so easy to be pushed off course and to become lost in the dark void of despair.

All of that changed as soon as I began to walk my one true path.  Now, even if I suffer a setback, I am easily able to deal with it.  I either fix the problem or, if I am unable to fix it, I quickly move on and leave it behind.  I have a balance and a centre of gravity within my soul that was completely lacking before.  Even when I suffer a major setback, such as my recent relationship break-up and the loss of love, I am able to deal with it, without it causing me huge amounts of sorrow and pain.  In my old life, I would fall into darkness.  I would be lost in a chasm of sorrow.  So how am I now able to do maintain my joy in life and my positivity even though I still suffer setbacks?  Simply because by walking my one true path, I have found an inner peace and stability that did not exist previously.  I know that when I am on my path, doing what it is that I love to do, I feel the joy and happiness of which I wrote in the preceding paragraphs.  That is my core.  That is what gives me my belief and faith in the universe.  Walking my one true path makes me so incredibly happy, it is almost impossible to feel any other emotion.  That is not to say that I do not.  It is just that any negative emotions seems to fall away, like the droplets of water sliding off a duck's back.  They try to stick to me but they are unable to do so any longer.  My happiness cannot be contained.  My happiness cannot be dented.  My happiness cannot be stopped.  As long as I stay true to my heart and continue to walk my one true path. 

I walk my one true path and because I do so, everything becomes one.  I am immersed in love.  I walk in the light.  And when I do, I know that I am part of the miracle of life and the universe.  And at the centre of the universe can be found the most simple thing.  At the centre of the universe there is just one word written.  And that word is love.

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