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 Time Is Now

To act, or not to act?  That is really the question that Shakespeare should have asked.  Whether it is more noble to act in a positive manner and to contribute to society, or to do nothing, and complain and moan about the state of everything?  I will always chose positive action over negativity and lethargy any day.  Yesterday, I witnessed an incident that reinforced my thoughts about our societies and made me wonder when are people going to wake up to the fact that they are the society in which they live?

As I walked the pavements of London, I saw a woman cycling her bicycle alongside a stream of cars, all making their way home from work.  Almost at the instant that I saw this cyclist, her shopping bag gave way, spilling several apples, that rolled on to road, until they came to a stop right in the middle of the road.  Too far away to lend assistance, I watched as the woman fought to balance her bicycle and at the same time, to pick up the apples.  Some people walked past on the pavement, the cars continued on.  Not one person stopped to give assistance.  Not one car paused to allow the woman more room.  In this one moment was a clear demonstration of everything that I believe to be wrong in our modern societies.

How would you have acted?  Would you have run to give aid and help.  Perhaps you would, but ask yourself truthfully, would you really?  It is all too easy to say to yourself that it is not my problem, that she will be okay, that someone else will stop, that I would like to stop but I really have to get to that appointment, to get home to put on the dinner, to go to the gym, to walk the dog, to pick up the kids.  The excuses go on and on.  Our modern and sophisticated society seems to always tell us that it is some else's responsibility, to provide an excuse for not acting, and for not being held accountable for your actions.

Here's another situation you will find yourself in.  You walk along the street and you see some litter laying on the pavement.  What do you do?  Do you stop, pick it up and carry it to the nearest rubbish bin?  Or do you mutter to yourself about the state of people these days and complain about where your tax payments have gone and leave the litter exactly where it is?  It's not your job to clean up after someone else is it?  That is the job of the local council, that is what unemployed people should do to earn their welfare, that is what criminals should do to help make amends for their wrong doings.  Why should you do it?  After all, you did not put it there.

As far as I can see, the trend in our society is to become annoyed, to complain about how things are, to accept them, to turn a blind eye, and to pass on the responsibility.  This is wrong.  Some people will say that capitalism is to blame because it breeds a culture of selfishness and greed.  It does not.  That is just another excuse that you give yourself for your lack of action.  We are all part of our society and as such, we each have a direct responsibility to make the society in which we wish to live.  We are all accountable for the state of things.  It is not the fault of the government, our economic system, materialism, the local council, immigrants, nor the youth.  It is your fault.

In the Bible, Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan.  The Samaritan was the person who took pity on the man at the side of the road who was in great need of help.  This only occurred after other respected persons (a priest, a levite) in the society at the time had passed him by and done nothing.  This is exactly the same as now.  People are walking past, turning away, and doing nothing.  It is not a question of religion.  Neither is it a question of race, gender, or age.  It is for each of us to do something to turn this around and to change it.

I was in New Zealand recently, at Lake Taupo.  As I walked from my motel into the town one morning, I saw on a picnic table discarded fast food wrappers and cartons.  It made a horrible mess.  No more than 5 metres (15 feet) away was a rubbish bin.  At first, I muttered to myself about the laziness of people and I walked past the table.  But I could only walk a few more paces before I was forced to turn around.  I walked purposely back to the table, picked up all of the litter and put it into the rubbish bin.  A woman passed me by as I did this and gave me a big smile.  This was my reward for my unselfish action.  Later that morning, I thought some more about what had happened.  By clearing the table, I made a woman happy.  I also made sure that from that moment on, no one else would see it, no one else would have cause to complain and to have negative thoughts which could spoil their morning.  I made sure that the picnic table could be used again.  It meant that the local council workers could focus on more important matters.  I did something positive.  The ripples of my action spread wider than I had first realised.  Indirectly, I had touched the lives of others in a positive way.  I had contributed to the society in which I found myself in a positive way and for that, I felt good inside.  I took that situation and made it into a positive experience.

I am no saint.  I am not perfect by any means.  What I do want to do though, is to make a difference.  I want to know that I tried, that I did not sit idly, that I did not just complain and moan about the state of the world and society.  I want to know that I helped people, that I reached out through my actions to enrich those around me.  I have a strong belief that if others started to act in a positive way, to begin to take care of those around them and the societies in which they lived, others would begin to do the same.  Once a cause gathers momentum, it quickly experiences a snowball effect.  The minority becomes the norm.

We each have the power to make society in the form that we wish to see and experience it.  Each of us is responsible.  Most of us are luck enough to live in a free society, we enjoy freedoms of choice.  This is your choice.  Do or not do.  You have the power to change.  It only takes one spark to light a fire.  Take your energy and do something good.  Quit complaining, stop saying it is someone else's fault, and start doing something positive about it.  Each of us can make the difference.  Many ripples that join in harmony become a wave.  Let's create waves and make the change.  The time is now.

_________________________

Broken Promises And A Change Of Plans

Never before have I experienced a betrayal of my trust, kindness and openness, which has left me feeling both stupid and foolish, as I have in the last days.  To say I'm flummoxed would be putting it mildly.  It has not only affected me on an emotional level, it affects all of my plans for New Zealand.  I've been left needing to make cancellations and re-bookings, and to rearrange my plans and itinerary accordingly, incurring some inevitable financial loss.  But what of the cost to my heart and my ability to openly trust in people?  Is that a far greater price that I am going to pay?

Everything happened in a whirlwind.  We met, we connected and we began the process of getting to know each other.  Very quickly, we fell into talking openly and candidly about our lives and our past experiences.  It was clear that we shared much in common, in particular a love of travel and the way that we viewed life, and the more that we became acquainted and got to know each other, I couldn't help but wonder how bizarre it was that we could possibly be so alike.  It was as if this woman was my twin, my mirror image in character, thought and life experience.  This was the basis on which we decided to meet again, to become travel companions, and after much discussion of possible destinations, New Zealand was agreed on as our destination.

Very quickly, everything was set, the plans were made and the itinerary worked out.  Between us, all of the key components were booked.  Transportation: buses, ferry, and car rental.  Accommodation: hotels, motels and campsites.  Activities: hiking, swimming with wild dolphins, skydiving, kayaking, ice climbing.  All of it was reserved.  Despite being separated by both time and distance, it had been an easy process to put together, making use of internet messaging, email and Skype calls, each one of us progressing an item while the other slept.  More evidence of our compatibility.  This was going to be an epic adventure, a dream trip and this time, I neither of us would be making it alone.

Then, completely abruptly and with no warning, it stopped.  One day, everything was fine and then it wasn't.  One day we were in communication, discussing through messages which type of sleeping bag would be most suitable, and then nothing.  Not even the crackle of static.  Just absolute silence.  A silence that lasted for two weeks.  No explanation, no word, nothing.  It was as though she had fallen off the face of the planet.  I attempted to make contact, to make sure that she was okay, that nothing sinister had occurred, but there was no response.  I grew concerned, who wouldn't?  She was living and working in one of the world's most dangerous countries.  Anything could have happened to her.  After two weeks of this silence, I wrote another email asking that she could please let me know she was okay, and if she could also let me know if our planned trip to New Zealand was on or off?  Finally I received an email response.  It contained one word: Off.

It is hard to fathom what has happened and I am not going to try.  I have some ideas but to try to rationalise this and make sense of it is a waste of time.  I will find no answer, I will never know.  The facts are the facts.  I do not believe it is healthy for me to try to figure this out.  The old me would have done exactly that.  I would have languished in the hurt, sorrow, self-pity and self-loathing.  I would have replayed conversations and actions over and over and I would have looked for signs and hidden meanings in them.  I would have clung on in desperation to the past, burying my fingers in its cracks, feeling the need to hold on to all that once was, as if to let go, would be to fall into a void of nothingness, in which I would lose myself.

Even during the two weeks of silence, I was surprised at my relative calmness.  I've experienced this wall of silence before, I've known women who have raised protective barriers around themselves, shutting out their heart, keeping it from becoming hurt.  When this happened, I would become like a caged animal, prowling, snarling, testing for weaknesses, not understanding why the bars prevented me from reaching my goal.  It would frustrate me, cause anger, and it would drive me a little insane.  The longer it continued, the more focused on it I would become.  This time there was none of that.  I'm not suggesting the silence was for those same reasons, but whatever the cause of it, the affect is the same.  I did not overreact, I just let things be, content to continue with my life, making the plans for my cycle tour of New Zealand, working my last days in Costa Rica, carrying on with my life.  The times that I did reach out and try to make contact, were from a genuine concern for her safety.     

What have I learned from all of this?  That is what I look for now.  It is more important that I take from this episode of my life some lesson and meaning for my life, than it is to spend time looking back at what might have been.  Perhaps that is the first of my realisations.  I no longer dwell in the past.  Since I began my true journey and since setting out my thoughts in this blog, I am more focused on the present moment and in what lies ahead.  My days of looking backwards are gone.  The past brought me to now, but it is in the now that I am able to make a difference, a difference that will affect my future to come.  The focus needs to be on now, this moment in which I exist, and by living that moment, I take one more step along my path.  Only the dead reside in the past because they have no future.

In that past, I would have looked for an action that I took, some words that I had spoken, even some words that I had left unsaid, and I would have felt at fault for what had happened, as if in some way, I was to blame.  But how could it be my fault and even more than that, why should it be my fault?  Every person has free will.  Every person is an extremely complex mix of experiences, emotions and inherited traits.  I am no different, just as you are no different.  If someone goes quiet and introspective, that doesn't mean that I am the cause of it.  If someone stops communicating and disappears, it is not my fault.  I have spent far too much of my life in the belief that I am no good and as a result of this, I have assumed myself to be the cause of every problem, every moment of silence, every pause in conversation, every miscommunication, every misunderstanding.  And I'll take this thought further.  If someone is not interested in me, if someone does not love me in the way that I love them, then that cannot be my fault either.  All I can be is myself.  It is either a right match or it is not.  It has never been, nor will it ever be, a fault on my part. 

That is what I have learned, but where does all of this leave me and my own plans?  I am still going ahead with my cycle tour of New Zealand.  That has not changed, it was always my own adventure and as such, will remain my own adventure.  I need to make changes in light of what has happened to dates and times, and to my planned route.  Everything has been affected by what has happened.  The details will follow in a new post shortly.  My immediate focus has needed to be on fixing the mess that was created by the broken promise of someone that I trusted.  That done, I can turn my attention back to bringing my dream into reality.  A dream that was always about me, a bike and the road.

I'll finish this post with one last thought.  It is a vow for life, a vow that I make now, and for each day that is to come:-

"I do not need someone else to make my life complete.  I do not need the love of another to make me whole.  For I am love.  I was born perfect and I shall remain perfect.  Since I already walk my path with love, I do not walk my path to seek love.  I walk my path to seek life.  And it is in life that I shall find all that I wish." ~ Andrew M.Smith

_________________________

 

The Wind Of Change

The wind listened intently.  It so loved to hear the moon and the sun arguing, as they constantly did, over which was the best.  As it listened, it could hear the moon talking.

"I'm telling you Sun, people look at me and they always see something different. It depends on the how I'm feeling.  There are some evenings when I only want to show a small slither of myself, or perhaps I'll put out half of my face and keep the other half shrouded in darkness to create intrigue.  And then some nights, I show everything and light up the world below with my radiant happiness."

"Oh Moon, you are so foolish!", laughed the Sun, as it thought of the Moon's stupidity.

"Well, well...", flustered the Moon, "...and just how do you change Sun? You're always burning full and bright.  You're the constant, boring ever presence!"

The sun sighed at the foolishness of the moon.  "Oh my dear friend.  It is I who brings subtle change by my movements.  When I am furthest away from the Earth, it is I who brings the long dark, cold of winter and the gloom to the hearts of all people.  It is I, who chooses when to usher in the buds of spring and new life, and to bring the joy and hope.  It is I, the glorious Sun, who brings the heat of summer, the long, seemingly endless days at the beach, when the hearts of the people begin to dream of far away places.  And it is I also, who begins the end of all things by moving slowly away again.  I am change!"

The Sun beamed more brightly at that moment, secure in the knowledge that once again, it had beaten the moon.  The moon fell silent and decided that coming night it could not show its face, and would keep it hidden behind the clouds.   The wind smiled a knowing smile and blew on.  It knew that it was only the wind who truly created change.  It was the wind that brought the hints and smells of the oceans, the deserts, the mountains, and of far off places, that began the dreams, and that sowed the seeds of change in the hearts of the people.  And for those few, those courageous few that dared, the wind touched their hearts, and set their feet to walking their one true path.

The wind blew harder that day and gusted around and about, touching more hearts than usual, such was its joy at knowing that once more, it was stronger than the sun and the moon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Today, I want to write about change, or rather, the change that I am bringing to my own life.  For a long time, there is a dream that I have held in my heart, it is a dream that erupts and bursts forth every time that I am sitting on the saddle of a bicycle, pounding my legs up and down, becoming lost in a rhythm of my own making.  I've read books by people who have done it, I've seen for myself people out on the road, as I have driven by in a car, wishing more than anything that I could exchange my comfortable air-conditioned environment, for their saddle, and earlier this year, I met someone who was undertaking the very adventure of which I have dreamed.  That dream is to make an epic cycle tour of some far off place.  The bicycle, the road and me, joined in a trinity of my own making.

Why now?  If you believe that a moment will come, when all the stars are in magical alignment, when every single event culminates at exactly the right time and place, creating for you the perfect opportunity, then I'm sorry to inform you that you could not be more wrong.  There is never a right time to begin a dream.  The time becomes the right time when you choose to make it the right time.  You can spend all of your life waiting for the perfect moment to arrive, it never will.  There will always be some task that needs to be done, a perceived loyalty to a job that you cannot quit, a commitment to a family member or a friend, you'll tell yourself that you need to save more money first, that you need more preparation time, that you'll do it next year.  You won't.  This will continue on and on until one day, as you wake up and lie on your bed feeling the old age in your bones, you will know that it is too late, that the moment is gone and has become lost forever.  To achieve a dream takes one single moment of... well what exactly?

Foolhardiness, idiocy, stupidity, bravery, courage, and strength.  All of these traits combine at a given point in time, at a single moment when your future life hangs in the balance.  At that one instant, you have a simple choice to make: do, or do not.  What this comes down to is whether you will choose to let your dream go on only ever being a dream, existing only in your mind, or whether you will seize upon the moment, and begin to turn that dream into a living reality.  There is no secret, no mystical formula, nothing special that distinguishes those of us who follow our dreams from those that do not.  It is a fallacy to believe that we are any different to those that do not pursue their dreams.  We are just the people that act, that see the opportunity and take it, because we understand the consequences of not doing so, and we fear to live a life full of what might have been.

Out of no where, an opportunity came to me, and for whatever reason, I was presented with a chance to do something else.  I knew the moment that it came, that I would take it.  There was no hesitancy, no moment of doubt, no questions that needed to be asked.  As with all of life, one thing inevitably leads to another. Imagine for a moment a room with a single door.  You can choose to open that door and step through it into whatever that awaits you on the the other side, or you can remain safe and secure within the four walls of the room, looking at the door and always wondering.  At the moment that you open the door and take that first step through to the other side, you discover an infinite number of possibilities.  Once you step outside, you give yourself the chance for anything to happen.  And it does.

After the initial decision was made to leave Costa Rica behind, to say goodbye to these rich shores that have been so good to me, that have given me some of the most amazing and incredible moments of my life, I found that I could at last make another of my dreams a reality.  At the beginning of December, I will make a long overdue journey back to England, to visit my family and to catch up with old friends, before I head off again in January, bound for the shores of New Zealand.  It will be in New Zealand that I will put into motion my dream of cycle touring.  What better place is there for my first foray into this new adventure, than a country that I know well, that has a modern infrastructure, speaks the same language (well mostly), and that offers miles of open roads and some of the most beautiful and stunning scenery on the planet?  I personally can think of no where better.

It will not be my first time to New Zealand.  I first went for a whistle stop, three week vacation in June 2004, touring both North and South Islands by car.  It was my first ever solo venture, a trial run of sorts to test myself and my abilities to travel alone.  I returned in January 2007, this time as an international student, enrolled on a degree program at Victoria University of Wellington.  I graduated in February 2010, and left New Zealand in April that same year, in pursuit of a different opportunity and dream.  New Zealand is in my blood and I am extremely happy to be returning there, this time to see so much more of that amazing country, at the slow pace from a saddle of a bicycle.

The winds of change blow.  When they do, it is for you to decide whether to act on their calling, or whether you will let them pass you by.  Dreams will always remain dreams unless you seize on the opportunities that come your way.  From one opportunity seized, others too will come.  This is the law of favourability, as the universe is kind to those that seek to turn their dreams into reality.  Once you are out there, walking on a path of your own making, your eyes and heart are truly open to life, and as such, further opportunities will come your way.  When the wind blows answer its call, take that step and allow change to wash over you.

 _________________________

Why You Must Dare To Escape Your Comfort Zone

Lately, I have found myself at a fork in the road.  In truth, I've been here for some time, staring blankly down each path that lies before me, attempting to figure out which is the right one, agonising over which option is most suitable, and utterly unable to decide which is the path that I should take.  Yet, no matter how hard I stared, trying in vain to see through the darkness that obscures each of these futures, I have been unable to fathom the direction in which I need to go.  For some time, I have reasoned with myself that it has been because I was unsure, seeing equal merit in each one, knowing that they all held the promise of the future.  That was until today, when a sudden moment of clarity and insight dawned upon me.  The reason I have not moved forward from the place where I am is because of one reason only: I am afraid.

You see, my life has become far too comfortable.  Take now, this moment for example.  It's 6:04am, I'm sitting up in bed, daylight from an already risen sun streaming in through the window, I'm listening to the early morning calls of the exotic birds drifting in from outside, I've got a cup of freshly brewed Costa Rican coffee sitting on the bedside table next to me, my laptop sits on my lap as I type this blog post, and in another browser tab, I'm following the early football kick-off in the Premier League on the BBC sport website from back in England.  Later on, around 9am, I'll take a leisurely bike ride the mile or so down to work, where I'll spend most of the day sitting down at the hotel, chatting, surfing the web, maybe take a swim in the pool or ocean, and generally not do very much, since it's low season here, and there are not many guests around.  This is not exactly a taxing life.  Sure, when work gets busy, it can be full-on, long, physically and mentally demanding and tiring days, but the balance of that is the couple of hours or more I get to spend under the ocean, in my absolute element.  This is perhaps the life of which I always dreamed.

And that is the problem right there.  It is the life that I have always wanted.  I attained my dream, so I should be happy, because that is what I tell everyone else, that the path to true happiness lies in seeking out and attaining your dreams.  Am I now advocating that everything I spoke of before, that everything in which I have believed and gambled on, was nothing other than a falsehood, one of life's lies?  I have been happy.  Very happy. I still am.  I have no need to change where I am or what I am doing.  Diving under the ocean here, with a tank of air strapped to my back, my only means of survival, gives me the utmost pleasure.  Simply stated: I love it.  The vast array of life, from the smallest nudibranch to the graceful ease of a manta ray, the seasonal changes, the unpredictability of the ocean conditions, the chance to see some of the most incredible sights, these are the reasons why I love it.  My dream has been fulfilled.  It's time for a new one.

I have learned that I cannot stay still.  At first, I believed that the cause of my constant need for change was a lack of commitment to any one thing.  I tended to view this in a negative way, as if there was something wrong with me, that I had a phobia of commitment.  What I came to realise was that my heart has been ever urging me on, never letting me settle, driving me forward in search of each new adventure.  My heart is a wild beast and it is hard to tame.  And like all wild beasts, I believe that their rightful place is being free, to wander wherever their will takes them.  There are many things that I want to achieve in this life, many places that I wish to visit, many things that I wish to experience.  I have always known it.  As a young boy, I had a strong urge for adventure, that urge exists in my heart still.  I have to grow and learn, my heart demands it of me.  My whole life has been a series of progressions, of learning experiences, academically as well as psychologically.  I have to continue to do this, until my heart tells me it is time to stop, that at long last, we have found our home.

This is why I find myself at the fork in my path.  I have been looking for something new.  To step away from the path that I am on, to change my direction once more.  But I have felt a great reluctance to change.  At first, I firmly believed it was because none of my options were the right ones for me.  Good options, but not quite right.  Being heartstrong means that I have to feel it in my heart, or I am just nor there.  I could feel none of my options in my heart, and so I knew that I needed to wait a little longer and the right choice would present itself to me at the right moment.  And it did.  I wrote of my moment of epiphany last week in my post, Knowing The Path.  Yet, even after experiencing this moment, there was something that held me back and that confused me.  After the euphoria of my epiphany came some moments of doubt.  Was this truly right for me?

I began to think that the answer was no.  That the choice to go and travel again was not my true path.  Almost, I began to believe this to be my truth, that is, until I had to make the jump across the border to Nicaragua this past week, to renew by tourist visa for Costa Rica.  In the process of travelling on public buses, of watching life unfold before me, of seeing exotic places, of being in some place different, of needing to push myself to know which bus to take and when, walking across the no mans land between neighbouring countries.  All of these things fired up my desire for travel.  Just a moment ago, as I was typing an earlier paragraph, a picture came floating into my mind of a far off distant shore, and in that moment, my heart leapt with a great sense of joy.  I know that it is what I wish to do.

Even though I feel the truth of it in my heart, I am afraid.  You see, I like my life, I like being in Costa Rica, I like having the chance of meeting with a manta ray or a huge school of devil rays.  I like my fully furnished apartment which contains everything that I need.  I like my landlord and next door neighbour, with his super cute, little two year old daughter and his crazy dog called Manny.  I like that I can go into the grocery store and be greeted by the people that work there, because they know me.  I like that I can cycle down the road and see people who wave at me, cars that hoot to acknowledge me, as I wave back.  I like that I can pop down to the bakery, just one minute away and buy freshly baked bread for my lunch.  I understand how life works around here and I like that.  I feel safe and I feel secure in this existence.  I could stay and perhaps I would be content.  Perhaps I might be.  Why risk change and a voyage into the unknown?

I believe that it is this fear of change that prevents many people from achieving their true dreams.  As humans, we enjoy comfort and security.  After achieving the necessities of life - air, water, food, shelter - security and comfort are next.  After all, we have it drilled into us from our earliest days that we must work hard, so we can take out a mortgage to buy a house, so that we can save for our retirement, save for our medical insurance, we must surround ourselves with the trappings of modern life, with possessions that add to our sense of security and comfort.  Unfortunately, the truth is, that we are never as secure as we might believe.  No one is immortal.  No one is immune to illness, disease, or accidents.  No matter how secure you believe your job to be, it is not.  No employee is indispensable.  When a company needs to cut back in order to maintain solvency and profitability, it will do so ruthlessly, without mercy, and the axe can fall on anyone.  I've seen it happen, I've seen first hand how technological advancements affected the workplace.  I was an instigator of those changes, I had a role in affecting the lives of others in a negative way.  It always left a sour taste in my mouth.     

We cling on to all that we have attained because it provides us with a sense of security.  It is the attainment of that security that causes us to sacrifice the dreams of our heart, to forsake the true path in life, the one that would provide us with the greatest sense of happiness and joy.  In this, I am no different.  I too feel the pull of that voice that urges security.  It is a deeply rooted, primeval urge to create security in your life.  But there is a stronger voice that beats inside of me.  The voice of my heart.

My heart rules me.  Its voice is so strong to me, that I cannot avoid its urges.  I must forsake my comfortable life if I wish to follow its call.  My fear of change almost paralysed me.  It almost held me tightly in its grip, telling me that here, in the life I lead now, I am happy and that I possess all that I need.  My heart never ceased its constant reassurances.  My heart knew that it needed to wait only for the right time, when I stood in a moment of silence, to act, and it did.  These other paths that I might take, perhaps I will come back to them on a different day.  Perhaps then, they will be the right paths for me, paths that my heart urges me to pursue.  Until that day, I must follow my heart along our present course.  And that is a course that leads me away from my comfort and security and into the unknown.

If I do not risk change, then I will never grow.  Life is a learning process, I see it as the process of evolving the soul.  Change allows us to learn and to grow.  Taking yourself outside of your comfort zone demonstrates just how much you are capable of, how much we are all capable of, and that always comes as a surprise, it is so much more than you can possibly imagine.  If I stay here on this path, I might be happy, I might enjoy my comfort and security, but I know there will come a time when I will have missed my opportunity of discovery, of growth and of learning.  And rather than the fear of losing my comfort and security, that is my greatest fear in this life.  That is why I must continue to live the life that I do, until the moment when I finally discover my home in another soul.  Perhaps finally then, I will be able to rest.  But I don't think so.  Perhaps I can sum it all up best with the words of Lord Alfred Tennyson:-

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

___________________________________

Beginning Is Everything

It is February 1999 and I'm sitting beside a campfire with a colleague from the local office, we're in a game reserve, a couple of hours drive outside of Johannesburg, South Africa.  It's my first visit to South Africa, I've been here only a few days, and I barely know Sergio, yet here I am, knowing that there is something important, something significant about this weekend.  Perhaps that is only the excitement I feel of embarking upon this little adventure, the kind of adventure of which I had only ever dared to dream.  Perhaps it is the calming affect of the flames and the twinkling lights of the sky above me, but as our conversation turns to matters of life, despite our knowing each other only for a very short time, I feel completely at ease.  A moment arrives and Sergio asks me what it is that I really would like to do with my life, what are my dreams?

As I sit there, staring into the flames, my mind becomes blank.  There is nothing, only a vast emptiness, static through the radio.  I shuffle uncomfortably in my seat, knowing that I should be able to say something, to be able to elucidate a response, but I cannot.  "I don't know", I mutter it, feeling a sense of embarrassment that I cannot articulate any deep seated passions in life, that I don't have any clear vision of my future.  Sergio surprised me then.  Most other people would probably drop the topic, let it go and move on to a subject in which we could both actively engage, but he did not.  Instead, he said something that I was not expecting.  "Yes, you do", he said.

Three simple, one syllable words, that were to change my life forever.  Sergio continued to explain to me that I did know what it was that I wanted, only I had locked it away deeply inside.  "Everyone has something that they wish to do, something that they wish to be", he told me, "Everyone has a true purpose".  Try as I might, that evening, I was unable to find it inside of me.  I knew there were elements of things I enjoyed but these were incoherent, they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that I saw no way of slotting together.  I had always loved the outdoors and nature.  Each winter I longed for the onset of spring, knowing that this was to usher in the months of summer, and summer meant I could spend time at the beach and in the sea.  I loved to feast my eyes on mountains, rivers, valleys, hills, trees, flowers, grass, wild animals and birds, all of nature, but these alone were not anything that I could do, they were not a plan for the future, they did not constitute a life that I could lead.  Although I had told Sergio that I did not know, I did know somewhere deep inside, that it had something to do with all of these elements, but I feared that to say as much, meant that I would look a little foolish in front of a colleague, and so I remained silent and kept this to myself.

From this time on, I began to give thought to what it was that I really wanted to do in my life.  These thoughts would come and go, and it would take several more years, many different people, many different places, and a single book, before I was to make my own discovery.  But the seed had been truly planted and from this moment on, I had begun to awaken to the possibilities, I was becoming open to life.  I knew back then that there was a desire inside of me to do something different with my life, something that had greater meaning for me.  How then, was I ever going to unlock it and give it the wings that it needed to fly free, if I could not articulate it for myself?  And if I could not articulate it, how was I ever going to be able to bring it to fruition?

I think this is true for many of us.  We have a very clear idea of what it is that we do not want to do in life and we find it easy to say what those things are.  However, when it comes to saying what it is that we do want, we find it incredibly difficult to describe what that is.  I have asked others the same question that Sergio asked me that evening, and I have received similar responses.  People tell me that they do not know what it is that they want, that they know they want to make a change in their life, but they cannot say for sure what that change involves, only that they feel the need to make it.  I hear their words and they echo back through time to my own past.  Having experienced and learned all that I have during my own journey, I know that somewhere deep inside, every single one of us has our own particular answer.  That answer is the truth for your life, it is your one true path.  Discovering it, will allow you to unlock the light that lives inside of you.  So, why is it easier to say what we do not want, but not so easy to describe to someone that which we do want?

I believe that it is primarily out of a sense of fear.  Fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of losing your comfort and security, fear of what people will say, fear of what comes after, fear of failure.  There is one other fear: the fear that if you are able to visualise clearly what it is that you want to do, then you no longer have an excuse for not doing it, and if that were to happen, you would live with a constant sense of regret.  All of the time that I could not articulate my own vision and dream, I could not make a start, since there was nothing that I could grasp and work on.  It was like trying to hold on to mist.  In not being able to say what my dream was, I gave myself the ultimate excuse for not beginning, for not doing it.  I know that I used to look at other people, all of whom seemed to have such a clear vision for their lives, and I would feel a sense of inadequacy.  I know that there was a part of me that felt that I was not worthy of achieving my dreams, that I was undeserving of finding my truth, and because of this, I did not believe that I was worthy of making a start.

How did I overcome all these fears?  I simply began.  I think I always knew that I would begin, I waited only for the right moment and the right set of circumstances.  In truth, I didn't just wait, I actively looked for them, I wanted them to come to me, I wanted an excuse to quit my old life and begin the new.  And they did come to me.  When they did, I seized upon them and I made it happen.  I took my first step towards changing my life from the one that I had, to the one that I wanted.  I took that step without really knowing what awaited me down the path.  I took that first step full of fear and trepidation for what lay ahead.  I walked into the unknown and the moment that I did, it was no longer the unknown, it was no longer the fearsome darkness, instead, it became my life.

Even though I began my journey, I still had no true idea of what it was that I was going to do, where it was going to lead me.  I think that was the point though.  My own dream started out as a need for travel, travel that was unhindered by time or any other commitments.  What I did was to give myself the opportunity to make discoveries about life and about myself.  Along the way, I found what it was that I had been seeking, I found the thing that I had never been able to articulate to anyone before.  I discovered the world under the ocean, and from that moment on, my life changed and I began to become the real me, the person I had always born to be.  If I had not begun, I could never have made this discovery.  I would never know it and everything that has happened since would not exist.  Isn't that an interesting thought?

So, you may be sitting there, saying to yourself that I was lucky, that I had good fortune and yes, this is true.  But that would never have come my way if I had not begun, if I had not taken a chance on life.  You may be sitting there telling yourself that you still do not know what it is that you want, that you cannot visualise your own dream.  To you I say this: Open your heart.  That is where the answer lies.  No matter how ridiculous your idea may seem to you, nor how impractical, foolish or silly, if it comes from your heart, then it is your own truth.  It is what you must do.  If you feel afraid to start, consider how you are going to feel knowing that out there is your dream just waiting for you to find it.  I will leave this post with just one word of advice for you: begin.  You see, beginning really is everything.

_________________________

Why The Moaning Has To Stop

This morning, I had to catch myself, to stop myself from complaining and moaning about my job.  It is all too easy to moan, being British, it seems to be something that we do rather well.  It is almost as if it is part of the culture.  We moan about the weather, the buses running late, the queues at the post office, the state of the country.  In fact, the British will pretty much moan about anything and everything, there is no subject that is off limits.  But I am not here to bemoan the British way of life, I am here to focus on my own life and how I feel about it, when I catch myself moaning.

Moaning.  To moan, is to utter a constant barrage of complaints, lamenting a given situation.  In my first job, I would walk around the office and either be a party to, or overhear conversations where my fellow workers would complain about the pay, the conditions, their manager, the direction the company was heading in, their lack of responsibility, their workload, the car parking in the employee car park - basically everything.  Two things are clear in my mind from back then.  First and perhaps because of the situation from which I had escaped, I was happy and proud to be working in those offices, doing what I was doing.  For sure the pay was not great, but the situation was a whole lot better than standing on a production line, inserting plastic gutters into the back of a refrigerator and securing them with two small plastic rivets, one thousand four hundred times per day.  I fully appreciated where I was, and knew, even at the age of seventeen, that life could be a whole lot worse, because it had been.

Secondly, when I heard these conversations, a question arose in my mind.  I wondered why, if things were so bad and clearly that person was extremely unhappy working there, why they just did not leave and work somewhere else?  I did not understand why anyone would accept the situation that they were in. This is for me, a very significant time in my life.  It is obvious to me, that even back then, I knew that I would never stay in a situation that made me unhappy.  I just did not see the point in doing so.  I thought back then, as I still do today, that if something makes you unhappy, you have two clear choices, you either change the situation, or you accept it.

That is basically how I live my life.  All the while that I am happy, I stay where I am, doing what I do, being with who I am with.  The moment that I become unhappy, then I act, and I make a change.  I have never seen the need to maintain a situation that is negative passed a certain point.  There comes a time when my heart says "No more" and when I can no longer feel my heart in something, then I know that it is time to move on, to go somewhere new, to let a person go their own way, or to try something new.

My life history is filled with such decisions.  I had to drop all of my so-called friends because I could take no more of their ridicule and bullying.  I changed jobs because I no longer felt in tune with the company for which I was working.  I changed my home because I felt the need to be some place else.  I let friendships go because those people were no longer my kind of people, or no longer thought the way that I did.  I changed myself because I was not happy with the way I looked.  I finished relationships because I could no longer feel my heart in them.  I did not spend time complaining about my situations, I did not waste my energy moaning about them.  I simply stood up one day and said "Enough.  Today is the day that I make the change."  From that moment on, I was committed to moving on, to changing my life, to eradicating the situation that was making me unhappy.

Life is short and we only get one go on the merry-go-round.  Why would you want to keep negative situations in your life, situations that make you unhappy?  What purpose do they serve you?  It is my belief that people who moan and complain like to do so.  It is as if they have something to prove, that they are able to keep going in the face of adversity.  I think these people are cowards and live their lives out of fear.  You may disagree and think to yourself that some people are unable to change their situation, that they are trapped in a certain situation.  With some very minor exceptions involving imprisonment and slavery, I do not believe that to be true.  What is true of humanity, is that we each are capable of change.  We are each able to alter our situation.  Yes, some situations are more difficult to change than others, but they can all be changed - if you are willing.  People who moan are generally speaking not willing to change their lives.  Moaners and complainers are people who have given up on their dreams.  They are people who believe that they are undeserving of their dreams and of happiness, they are people who feel resentment and bitterness.   

Moaning is an expression of negativity.  Change is an expression of positivity.  What I realised this morning, as I was eating my breakfast cereal and enjoying my first coffee of the day, was that I was in danger of falling into the trap of moaning about my life and doing nothing about it.  I am not that person.  I never have been, and I never will be.  I empower myself to act.  I empower myself to change.  And I allow myself to be happy.  I cast aside unhappiness and situations that do not work for me, and I seek out those that do.  Those that bring me joy, a smile to my face, and a warm glow in my heart.  For me, this is the way of the one true path.  This is how I will continue to walk in the light.

Today, I decided not to moan about my life.  I decided that if I continue to be here, doing what I do, working where I work, then I am going to shut up about those things that make me unhappy.  If they were really such a big problem, I would change my place of work, I would move on again.  In exchange for not moaning, life showed me exactly why I do what I do, where I do it.  This morning, on my two dives, I was rewarded with sharks, rays and a huge array of life under the ocean.  Later in the afternoon, I swam the short distance from the beach to our dive boat and I jumped off the top deck.  As I did, I let out a loud "Whoo-hoo!" and let the child inside of me escape, I gave the child his wings to fly free.  Life is not so bad.  I have no reason to moan.  I have no reason to complain.  I am where I want to be, doing what I love to do.  Life has been kind, but the moment it is not, you will never hear me moaning about it.  You will never hear me complaining.  That is a promise I make to myself and to my heart.

_________________________

We Are Born To Be Butterflies

A friend of mine recently posted some pictures of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.  Over the course of a few days, she posted a series of photographs, as the caterpillar transformed itself into something quite remarkably different, and emerged as a beautiful butterfly.  A simple miracle of life?  Yes, but it is also a perfect metaphor for our own lives.

For some creatures, their destiny is mapped out for them and their purpose in life is clear.  A caterpillar must become a butterfly.  It has to evolve and change, because it is programmed to do so.  Life wrote its story, life determined that this would be the way of things.  There is nothing to stop it.  Even if it could, the caterpillar is powerless to stay as a caterpillar, it has to change, it has to become something else, something more than it was.  No amount of effort can prevent it from becoming that which it was always destined to be from its birth.  The life story of a caterpillar perfectly illustrates two very important truths of life.  First, that inside of each of us there resides a great beauty waiting to be revealed and second, that each of us has one true destiny to fulfil.

My own soul and my own heart, spent many years as a closely guarded secret.  I kept them hidden from the world at large, too afraid to show my true self, too scared of what other people would say about me, or think of me.  I hid my true soul from my family and my friends.  I struggled with my weight from a young age and this had a massive impact on how I viewed myself.  In short, I viewed myself as ugly.  Ugly on the outside, ugly on the inside.  And I viewed myself in that way for many years.  That opinion of myself took a hold of me, it buried in roots deep in heart, it corrupted the way I thought of myself, it poisoned me against myself, and rather than step out and be all that I could be, I hid myself away.  I was embarrassed to be me.   A flower needs the sun and without it, will slowly wilt and die.  I denied myself sunlight and my heart and my soul began to wilt and fade.  Slowly, imperceptibly, I was killing myself.

There is one thing that holds true for life on this amazing planet.  Life is never beaten.  Life always finds a way.  In the arid, scorching, desolate sands of the desert, life exists.  In the deepest, darkest, abyss of the ocean, life thrives.  In the cold, desolate, bleak, freezing, whiteness of the poles, life finds a way to hold on.  Once created, life is a force that will keep on trying to survive, no matter the odds, no matter the conditions, no matter the adversities.  So it is with our hearts.  Our hearts are our life force.  All the time that your heart continues to beat, you have life coursing through your veins.  That life cannot be denied.  It cannot be halted.  It cannot be contained.  Life rescued me.  Or rather, I saw a break in the clouds and the emergence of a ray of golden light, and I saw that I had a chance to be more than I was, to go in discovery of my true self, to unleash the power and the beauty that resided in me.  And at the same time, I was given a chance to find my own true destiny.

Through a combination of events and circumstances, I freed myself from the shackles that had bound me.  I began to walk on my true path, I began to believe in myself.  The doubts and the fears about who I was subsided and were replaced by hope and confidence.  The more time I spent walking my own path, the stronger my convictions grew about who I was, who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do.  I did not need anything from my past to define me.  Everything that I needed to be me already existed within me.  I had always known that my heart was sensitive.  I had felt it all of my life.  I had always known that I was very much in tune with my emotions and felt joy, loss, elation, and sadness keenly.  Now, walking my path, I listened to my heart, I heard its voice and I heeded its call.  I began to let my true self emerge, I began to understand that I had no reason to be afraid of who I was.  I finally understood that it is not how we look on the outside that defines the person that we are, it is through our actions, our words, our thoughts and our hearts that we are defined.  It is what resides on the inside, that truly reveals our beauty as a person.

I see these two things as intrinsically linked in my life. I was not able to began to reveal my true self, until I began to walk my true path.  One led to the other.  Perhaps it was that at some point I showed my true self first, and though doing so, I discovered my path.  Yes, now that I have had that thought, I can feel the truth of it.  There was a person to whom I lowered my guard, to whom I showed my true self, my true spirit and in me, that person saw the struggle that I had to be free, and they offered me the hand of friendship and of fellowship.  They helped me to see the way ahead could only be my own way, my own destiny, my one true path.

I learned to stop hating who I thought I was and instead, to love who I am.  I learned to accept myself and to forgive myself, and this is an act of love - perhaps the greatest act of love.  Love reveals our inner being and beauty.  Love reveals our destiny.  I now walk the path of love.  It is love that unlocks the door to life and to the discovery of the light that resides within.  Through loving your own heart, you are able to truly set it free and to become everything that you were born to be.  Through love, I reveal my true self.  Through love, I walk my true path.

If you hear the voice of your heart and do not heed its call, then you will be destined to live out your life, just as a caterpillar does.  You'll know and you'll understand that you have a calling, a destiny that needs to be fulfilled, yet you will deny it to yourself.  In so doing, you will also deny yourself the opportunity to reveal your true self, that self that is your inner beauty.  If you do heed the call of your heart and begin to walk your one true path, then you will transform yourself into a butterfly.  You'll reveal your true self as a thing of beauty, you won't be afraid to show your fragility, since this is the very thing that defines what you are and allows you to be all that you need to be.  Through revealing your true beauty and fragility, you will show your strength and with an unfettered heart, you will flex your wings and fly free on the breeze.

Each of us is born a caterpillar.  Only those that walk their one true path will reveal the simple truth of life.  That we are born to be butterflies.

_________________________

Just As The Rolling Stones Said

Yesterday, I held a friend's four week old baby on my lap and, as I looked down on this miracle of life, I was taken back in time, to one summer many years ago, and I wondered how my life might have been so completely different.  I asked myself if I will ever have a child of my own to hold and to bestow upon them the love and the wisdom that I have to give.  And I asked myself whether I will ever get to fulfill my destiny as a man, and to become a father, or did I miss my chance?

I have learned that life takes us where we need to go and that the journey is not always in the direction that we may wish.  One summer, many years ago, life decided that my path would go a different way from the one that I was expecting it to take.  Back then, I was very much in love, thought I had found my soul mate, I was enjoying a career that was rocketing forward faster than I could believe, my brother was going to be married, and I, unbeknown to my family, was going to be a father.  It was an incredibly exciting time.  Then fate twisted the knife and the picture that I held in my mind of the happily ever after, family man was destroyed beyond all recovery.  Everything was lost to me in just a few words of a conversation, in just a few seconds of time.  As the words fell, so too did the pieces of my life, fragments falling to the floor and shattering, like the most fragile pieces of fine porcelain.

I don't think about this moment too often, but now that I do, I see it with a new perspective.  There was my chance of fatherhood being taken away from me and at the time, so too was the way in which I saw my future.  In the darkness that followed, and days of falling through the abyss of deep, dark, despair and depression, I could see no way ahead.  I felt only loss, the loss of my soul mate from my life and the loss of my chance for fatherhood.  One moment I had stood, basking in the rays of warm light, in love and going to become a father, the next, I stood in the darkness, utterly alone with my loss.  The days that followed, the weeks and the months, were difficult.  I was lucky to have a very good friend who helped me through it, who dragged me out and would not let me stay in my stupor and malaise.  He laughed as I hit golf balls one evening at the driving range and said that each one must have had the face of my ex.  I laughed along, not able to tell him that he was wrong, that I was still in love and that I felt no anger, just sorrow at my loss.  I recovered, just as everyone always does, but it took me a long time.

Now that I think about that evening, when my world shifted completely, I know that everything that has occurred in my life since, would never have come to fruition.  On one hand, I lost my chance of fatherhood and family life, but on the other, I have everything else.  I am not bitter about what happened.  In fact, I am thankful because it has allowed me to accomplish everything that I have, and to experience so many wonderful things in my life.  It allowed me to discover my true path in life, the path that has true meaning for me.

I will never know where the other path would have led me.  I never think back and wonder about it.  There is no point and I consider that as wasted time and energy.  My feelings tell me that things would not have worked out, they could not have worked out.  I have this deep feeling that at the time I was still not ready.  Perhaps I would have been able to adapt and evolve myself, I will never know and so there is little point in thinking on it.  My path took a new direction, life had another purpose for me, and life took me to a place I could never have dreamed.  From that point in my life, which was probably one of my lowest, everything changed and life has given me so many wonderful gifts and opportunities.  It tells me that we should never give up, even when all hope seems to be lost and gone, because it never is.

I my still be childless, I may still not be a father, but I do know that my time will come.  Yesterday, as I held that tiny bundle of life, I knew beyond doubt that I want that for myself.  I would like to be a father, I would like to be a husband.  Sometimes in life, we can't always get what we want, but if we try, we often get what we need.

_________________________

Claudia And Elby

Claudia the caterpillar was feeling rather sad.  Earlier that day, she had been excited and happy and bursting to tell her friend Elby, who was a ladybird, her wonderful news.  For the past few weeks, a feeling had been growing inside of Claudia.  At first, it was barely perceptible, but it had been there, at the end of each day, whenever the quietness fell over the woodland.  She did not know what it was, or where it came from, but she felt it nonetheless.  It seemed to Claudia that the moment she became conscious of this feeling, it began to grow.  Or was it just because she thought about it more and more that slowly, and with the passing of each day, it grew a little larger?  For thoughts cannot grow on their own.  It is our own minds that water the seed that has been sown, and allow them to take root and grow their shoots. Soon, the thought had begun to come to her more and more often, until almost her every waking moment was filled with it.  It felt like a fire had burst into life inside of her soul, a fire that raged and wanted to be set free.  She realised that the feelings that she had were coming from a place deep within her, they were coming from her heart, as if her heart was willing her to be something more than she was.  Claudia could not hold these feelings to herself any longer and had decided it was time to tell her best friend all about it.  But everything had gone wrong the moment that she opened her mouth, and had begun to tell Elby, that she was ready for a change in her life.

"You know Elby, I feel that there is more to my life than just munching on leaves all day", she had begun.  "I feel that it might be time to try something different.  Something new."

"Whatever do you mean Claudia?  What is wrong with what we do now?"  Elby looked appalled at the thought.

"I don't mean there's anything wrong with it Elby.  It's just... it's just that perhaps there's something more to life.  I don't know.  I feel like I would like a change."

"But I like you the way you are!  I don't want you to change Claudia.  And I like things the way they are too.  We don't need to change.  We have everything that we need right here, just as we are."

"Oh... I see." Claudia had been hoping that her friend would share in her excitement and might get involved in helping her make plans.  "But I really feel it in my heart that I could do so much more, that I could be so much more."

"That's dangerous talk Claudia.  You've got to be careful about that kind of thing.  Change brings chaos and upset.  It's much better to stay safe and secure just as you  are.  And besides, if you change, then we might now have so many things in common any longer."

"But you would still be my friend if I changed wouldn't you Elby?"  Claudia was now concerned that this feeling inside of her might cost her the best friend that she had in the entire world.

"I guess I would", replied Elby, "But I suppose that really would all depend on how much you changed."

Claudia let the conversation drop there and had quickly changed the subject.  For the rest of the day, she had felt sad and now she no longer knew what she should do.  That night, Claudia thought more about the conversation with Elby.  Maybe she was just being silly and Elby was right about everything.  Things were certainly good as they were and it was not as if Claudia was unhappy with her life.  Yes, it was probably better to forget the whole thing, she thought.  And that is exactly what she did for the next five days. 
 
During those five days, Claudia went about her normal daily activities, she chatted with Elby and her other friends, and not once did she mention the feeling that was inside of her.  Elby didn't ask her about it either, because Elby did not want to risk reminding of Claudia of it.  However, as with all yearnings of the heart, it is impossible to silence them, since after you have heard their call, the memory of them will live with you, until either you venture forth and follow them, or you accept them and continue to live a life of regret and wonder about what may have been.  Claudia still felt the urgings of her heart.  In fact, she felt them stronger than ever and now she was feeling conflicted.  If I change, I will lose my friends, she thought.  This made her anxious and worried because she did not wish to upset her friends and she certainly did not wish to lose them.  "I don't want to change!  I don't want to lose my friends!" she yelled out to the woodland.  Then an idea struck her.  Perhaps if she went away and hid herself for a few days, these feelings would pass.  Yes, to be alone for a while and to work out these feelings was the best thing she could do.  And when she came back, she would still be the same old Claudia and she would still have all of her friends.

So Claudia crawled away to the edge of the woodland so that she could be alone and work through her thoughts.  Once she was there, she realised that she needed a place to hide, so that she would not be disturbed or seen by anyone.  Unfortunately, all of the suitable places that she found were already occupied.  She was just about to give up on finding a place where she could find the solace that she sought, when she a sudden thought came to her.  I can spin my own home!  Soon, Claudia was smug and warm inside of her own cocoon, where she settled down to think about her life and to try to forget all about the notion of change.

Once she was inside of her cocoon, Claudia lost all track of the time.  She was unable to see the sun nor the moon, so she had no idea how many days she had been hiding herself.  She slept for much of the time and when she was awake, she thought about her friends and especially about Elby, and wondered how they were, and whether they would be missing her?  Many times she felt the urge to leave her cocoon, but each time the thought crossed her mind, she quickly dismissed it because she felt that she was not yet ready.  The urge to be different was strong inside of her still, and she told herself over and over that she did not wish to change.  My friends are important to me, I do not wish to lose them, she repeated to herself.

And then, on the first morning of her fourth week, Claudia woke with a sudden start.  The feelings that she had been having were no longer inside of her.   Her heart seemed to be empty and quiet.  She had silenced them!  "Yes!" she shouted, "I've done it.  I stopped myself from changing.  I extinguished the urge.  I can see my old friends again!"  Excited and anxious to see her friends, she broke down a wall of her cocoon and squeezed herself out.  Hurriedly, she ran to see her most dearest friend, Elby, who she found sitting on her favourite toadstool.

"Hello Elby!" she called out as she approached.  "It's me, Claudia!"

Elby looked around but did not seem to see Claudia.   "Claudia?  Where are you?  I don't see you."

"It's me Elby.   I'm right here."  Claudia was now standing right in front of Elby.

"You're not Claudia.  What kind of trick is this?"

"Of course I'm Claudia!  Oh Elby, I've only been gone a few days, surely you haven't forgotten your best friend already?"

"I haven't seen Claudia for about three weeks.  After a few days, I feared that perhaps a bird had taken her.  But anyway, you cannot be Claudia because Claudia was my caterpillar friend."

"Oh Elby, it is me.  And of course I'm a caterpillar.  Have you been at the mushrooms again Elby?  You know how they affect you so."

"Well, I can safely say that you are no caterpillar.  You're a butterfly if ever I saw one."

"What?  What did you say?" Claudia was in shock.

"I said that you're a butterfly."

It was only then that Claudia felt the flex of the delicate wings on her back, the daintiness of her legs and the spring of her step.  "Oh my gosh!  I did change."  

"I don't know you any longer Claudia.  I told you that I didn't want you to change, and look at what you went and did!"  

Claudia could sense that Elby was annoyed with her, when she had hoped that she would be pleased to see how her friend had changed and grown.  "Are we no longer friends Elby?"

"I cannot be friends with someone I no longer know."  And with that, Elby unfolded her little wings and flew off, leaving a sad and stunned Claudia all alone.  Claudia sat and wept.

Some time later, she was still weeping when she heard a voice.  "Ahem.  Ahem!  So, sorry to trouble you, but you seem rather upset about something.  Are you alright?"

Claudia looked up to see a magificent and handsome looking butterfly standing before her, flexing it's wings slowly up and down. 

"I'm sad because today I lost my best friend."

"How could you lose your friend?  What did you do?"

"I changed from a caterpillar into a butterfly and my friend didn't want me to become different.  She became angry with me for changing."  Claudia began to sob again.

"Now let me tell you something.  What kind of person would not want to see their friend become better and to improve themselves?  What kind of person would want to stifle a friend's growth?  I would hardly call that kind of person a friend.  In fact, I would be so bold as to say that they were no friend at all, and furthermore, I'd say that very probably, they were jealous of you."

"Why would Elby be jealous of me?"

"Because you became something that she could not.  You grew.  You discovered your true self.  You followed the calling of your heart.  And because you became different.   A true friend would support you through all of that.  A true friend would be at your side for every step of the way.  By the way, my name is Monty." 

Claudia sniffed.  "I'm Claudia."

"Well Claudia, why don't you come with me and we'll find you some new friends.  I know a lot of other butterflies and insects that are going to be very pleased to meet you.  Will you come with me Claudia?"

"Yes, I will."

With that, both butterflies took to the air and flew once, twice, three times around the head of a bright yellow flower and fluttered off on the breeze.  And from that day on, there was never a more happy, contented and beautiful butterfly in all this world than Claudia.

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