A Long Time Dead

The wind carried something with it that day.  Daniel could feel it.  It was not the biting cold that came down from the north, an infectious, bitterness that permeated the skin, burying its claws deep, finding its way inside his veins.  Nor was it the dampness that fell from the dark clouds that scurried overhead, charging across the valley, driven on by the ever present wind.  This feeling of Daniel's came from within and it was not the first time that he had felt it.  Today though, it was different.  Perhaps it was the cold that made his mind drift and long for the warm days of summer, more so this day than before.  Whatever it was, it mattered not.  In his heart, Daniel knew what he must do, as he had known for some time now.

~ ~ ~

This morning, as I walked down into the city of Wellington, through the cemetery at Bolton Street, a thought came to my mind.  'A long time dead.'  I'm not sure what brought this thought to my mind.  Like so many thoughts that occur, a spark of some mysterious force triggers them seemingly out of nowhere, but the truth is that deep down, some place in the subconsciousness, this thought has been forming, growing and watered, waiting for the moment when it would raise its head from the soil and make itself known.  The old graves of the cemetery, the stones that look down upon the city and the water, they were the trigger today.  Underneath that earth are the remains of people that once lived, who once breathed just as you and I breathe, who smiled, laughed and cried, who believed that there would always be another day.

The truth is that one day will come the last day.  It might not be today, nor tomorrow, it might not even be for a number of years, yet that day will surely come, as surely as night follows day.  Each day that we live out our lives brings us one day closer to our inevitable end.  Is that a melancholy and depressing thought?  I don't mean it to be.  I use it only to illustrate one very important point: the need to make hay, the need to make dreams a living reality sooner rather than later.  Or, as a certain Robert Herrick once wrote, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may."

This cycle tour has illustrated that to me very clearly.  At certain moments I have felt a rush of life force flooding my veins.  I have been unable to prevent a beaming grin from erupting on my face.  In the middle of no where, on my own, surrounded only by the wild of nature, the calls of birds, the hum of cicadas, I have laughed out loud, I have punched the air with sheer glee and delight, an overwhelming emotion of being here, of living out my dream and the giddy, euphoric happiness that comes with it.  There have been moments when I have wanted to cry, overcome with raw emotion and joy.  Those moments, those are the precious moments that define a life.  No, not just a life.  They define life.

I am guilty of squandered chances.  I know that much to my own chagrin.  I try not to waste chances but waste them I do.  Sometimes fear gets the better of me.  It is important to own up to such things because I feel it is important that any reader know that everyone is imperfect.  I talk to others of the pursuit of dreams and I encourage them.  I always shall.  I want to see others accomplish their goals and achieve their desires.  I use my own life as an illustration that anyone, that everyone can do this.  It is simply a case of taking the first step and then the next.  Those wasted chances, some I may live to regret, but I also know that certain chances will come again, if they were meant to be.  That is how we learn the lessons and how we grow our life spirit.

I have dreams to be fulfilled.  I do not know if I will achieve them all.  Right now, I have a work in progress.  My cycle tour is underway, I already feel that I have accomplished so much more than I could ever have expected.  Nonetheless, I will see it through to the end.  And after?  There is a question that remains to be answered.  One dream at a time.  Life has a way of resolving itself, of bringing you what you need, when you need it, you just have to keep your eyes open.  More than that though, you must keep your heart open and see the world through its eyes.  Perhaps that is the best advice of all.

Never reach the end and look back with regret.  The best definition of regret I can offer is that regret is wasted energy.  If you can change something, change it.  If you cannot, move on and leave it behind.  To reach that final day and to know that there were things that you still wished to accomplish, things that you knew you could have done, that is not regret.  This is my definition of hell.  And you shall not find me there.

~ ~ ~

Daniel stood up and began to walk back down the hillside.  He began slowly, finding that despite the downward force of gravity, his legs felt tired and heavy, unwilling to move.  "Perhaps I sat for too long?", he wondered, but already he knew that was not the reason for the heaviness he was feeling.  Sitting up on the hill, Daniel had looked out across the hills, valleys, rivers and fields of this land he knew so well and he had made a promise to himself.  It was that promise that now weighed heavily on his shoulders and gave reluctance to his legs.  "When I get to the bottom of the hill and reach home, everything will change and nothing will ever be the same again."  Had he made the right decision?  He could change his mind and no one would ever know about the promise that he had made to himself.  No one that was, except for his own heart.  Yet, even as the thought of breaking the promise came to him, a chink in the clouds appeared, sending a shaft of sunlight beaming down to light up a patch of stony ground on the earth below.  It was a sign and in that moment, any weariness left him.  In that moment of cloud, sun and earth, Daniel knew something important, he felt some how different.  He had begun and he would see it through.  And with that thought, Daniel's heart began to be happy.

_________________________

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.

 _________________________

Eight Years And Still Going Strong

It is the beginning of October 2005.  I do not yet know it, but my life is about to change forever.  There is an idea in my head, there is an opportunity to do something completely different in my life.  Perhaps it is a fools opportunity, but it remains an opportunity nonetheless.  In one hand, I have everything that I wanted: great job and career, business travel, nice apartment, sports car, platinum cards, no debts.  I did not come by this easily, I had to work extremely hard to achieve it, to have a little luck on my side, and to strive forward purposefully.  And now, I sit in that same apartment, staring out across the city, crushed under a leaden sky, to the cathedral spire that rises so majestically to the heavens, and I contemplate leaving it all behind, throwing it all away on some whimsical chance of adventure, to go backpacking to South East Asia.  Was I out of my mind?  Eight years later, I know the answer.

Why would anyone in their right mind even contemplate doing such a thing?  The answer to that question is that I believe they would not.  You see, decisions such as this are not made in the head by someone who is thinking rationally and logically.  A decision like this is made in the heart, and as such, it defies logic, since it was made with love.  I turned my back and walked away from a life that offered me financial security and stability, that offered me a pension plan, the chance of early retirement, healthcare, paid vacations, and other benefits.  I held in my hand the kind of life to which we are taught to aspire towards by our parents, our teachers, and our governments, that we are sold on a daily basis by advertisers and the media, the life that society as a whole, has decided is the right kind of life, the successful kind of life.  My problem, if that's what it is was, was that my heart held a very different view of what it deemed to be a success in life. 

I think this is a very important point.  Not everyone shares the same dream and that is a good thing.  Some people are born to be doctors, nurses, teachers, farmers, priests and many other occupations besides.  You know these people because they are the ones who exude passion for what it is they do.  I was not born to sit behind a computer, to stare at spreadsheets, no matter how important the decisions my interpretations of the data might be.  I had no passion for what it was that I did.  I just happened to be good at it and to thrive on the sense of importance and belonging that it gave to me.  These were nothing more than false idols and in my heart, I knew it.  I always had.  I didn't want to sit and discuss business at the restaurant, on the plane, in the airport lounge, on a Sunday evening teleconference.  I wanted to be away, to be free, to shake off the costume and the facade I wore and to be my true self again.  The further my career progressed, the more invested I was, the harder that became.  I saw my colleagues and I regarded them almost in an out of body way, as if I was not really there, I was looking on remotely.  These were, on the outside at least, different creatures to me.  Perhaps I was the wolf in sheep's clothing and they were the genuine article.  Perhaps, now that I think about it, they were exactly the same as I was, they too wore their masks, recited well rehearsed lines, and acted out their own part of the play.  Maybe they saw me in the exact same way that I saw them? I never thought about it in that way before.  But I saw them as company men and company women and I was not one of them.  I was different, I knew that I would break away from it, I felt it within me, had known it for so long, for too long, and I simply waited for the right moment, the right opportunity.  Whilst I waited, I positioned my life in such a way that when the opportunity came, I would have no reason to say no.

In the late summer of 2005, that opportunity arrived.  As the words were voiced to me one evening down at the pub, over a pint of the black stuff, I knew the answer without a moment of hesitation or doubt.  Here was the chance to make a change, to have an adventure, the likes of which I had only dreamed.  A few weeks later, under pressure to make a business trip to Chicago, to attend an important client meeting, I found myself talking with my boss on the telephone and I heard myself resign from my job.  What had I done?  I knew that even though I had resigned and was working out my notice period, I could get back in again.  I knew I was well respected and liked, that all I had to say was that I had made a mistake, and everything would go back to how it was before.  But I never did.  Even after I left, during the period I was selling all of my material possessions in readiness for my adventure, I still felt sure they would take me back, it was still not too late.  I could cancel the ticket, call up my old boss, say sorry, negotiate my way back in.  The thought did occur to me, it was just not as strong a pull as the pull of adventure.  I was finally out, standing on the verge of something new, something terrifying and I was about to find out whether my dream was just a fool's wandering mind and nothing more.

I gave up everything I had known, I took away all the securities of family, home, comfort, income, and known routine and forced myself into a life unknown.  I had a round the world plane ticket that would take me from London to Bangkok, to Sydney, to Auckland and then back to London.  I had a place to stay in Bangkok for my first few nights, with a friend of my sister.  Other than that, I had no plan, no idea where I was going to go, no idea what I was really doing.  In many ways, this is exactly what I wanted.  I didn't want to know.  Not because I was afraid of it but rather because I wanted to live on the edge, to go from place to place and have my first priorities those of food, water and shelter.  I wanted to get back to the basic needs of humanity, to throw off everything else, and to see what exactly there was inside of me when I exposed myself completely to life.  And so I did.

My adventure would unfold in a random, rather haphazard fashion, until at some point in time a few months later, my heart found the very thing for which it had always sought: a paradise island of white sand and palms, a turquoise ocean that lapped at its shores, wooden huts on stilts close to the waters edge.  A picture postcard version of my heaven.  I discovered like minded people, I found myself with fellow wanders and adventurers.  And in this heaven, I discovered the thing that would change my life again, I discovered scuba diving.  But more than this, I found a place where I could be completely and utterly free, where I was able to be my true self, to indulge myself in my fantasies, to get up close to nature and to witness her miracles, a place where I discovered the meaning of life.  That place was under the ocean.

In scuba diving, I found my passion.  I discovered something that no one had ever talked to me of doing before.  Had someone recognised my love of the ocean, of being in the ocean, of playing around down at the beach, then perhaps they might have suggested it to me, but being from England, and despite living at the seaside, scuba was not something I knew, other than on some old Jacques Cousteau documentary.  I had to take a chance on life in order to make this discovery.  If I had not, perhaps I would still be looking for my thing, perhaps I would now be sitting in an office, spreadsheet in front of me, jiggling numbers, and not writing a blog post from my bed in Costa Rica, with the sound of early morning calls from the birds as company.

Now here I am, eight years later and I am still going strong.  Eight years of dreams and adventures.  I returned back to England after Asia and four months later, I was sitting in a lecture theatre on campus at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, for my first ever lecture.  I graduated three years later with a bachelors degree in Information Systems and an A grade average across all eighteen papers that I sat.  On another whim, I travelled to South Africa, where I rekindled my love of scuba diving and there, made the decision to become an instructor.  A decision that brought me across the Atlantic, to the Caribbean and to Central America.  In the process of all that has happened, I made perhaps the biggest discovery of them all: I found my true self, and I came to an understanding of my life, of who I am.  I still do not know what the future holds in store for me, no one can ever truly know that answer, and I do not wish to know, since that is the mystery and adventure of life. 

So, eight years later, was I out of my mind?  The answer to that question is an unequivocal yes.  Completely and utterly.  You see, I had to be out of my mind so that I could accomplish all that was required.  I used to be described as being headstrong and stubborn, but that was never the truth.  The truth of my life is that I am heartstrong and for me, that is what has made all of the difference, that is what has allowed me to go on this voyage of discovery.  Of course I was out of my mind, there can be no doubt of that, because I was in another place entirely.  I was in my heart. And there I shall remain.

_________________________  

Your Life, Your Story

There are days in our lives when it feels as if nothing is ever going to work out.  Sometimes, those days stretch into weeks or even months and the feeling becomes inescapable.  It seems as though there is no way out of the darkness that threatens to consume you, to overwhelm you, and to take you down to the bottom of the abyss from which there is no return.  When these times come upon us, and they surely will, just as the sun rises and sets each day, it is easy to despair, to blame ill-luck and bad fortune for all that has befallen you.  How is it then, that you can deal with the bleakness of these situations, how can you keep your head above the waters that threaten to engulf you?

The other day a thought occurred to me.  What if you were to imagine your life story as a novel that had already been written?  A stranger wanders over to a table in a cafe and picks up your book.  They leaf through the pages idly, stopping randomly at a certain point.  That point is now.  At this one point in the story, they know nothing of your past and nothing of your future.  All that they will know of your story is from the letters that they read, those words, lines and paragraphs that describe all that is happening right now.  The stranger in the cafe begins to read.  What will they find?  Who is the main character of your story? What type of story will they believe that they are reading - action, thriller, horror, adventure, romance, or tragedy?

This is exactly what is happening now, when you look at your own situation.  You are reading the chapter that concerns all that is occurring in the present moment.  Unlike the mysterious reader in the cafe, you already know the past, you understand perfectly all of those things, those actions, the decisions, those strange quirks and twists of fate, that brought you to where you are now and that made you into the person that you have become.  Only, just like our reader, you also do not know how the story is going to unfold, you can not know what the future holds in store for you.  If you could, would you even want to flick to the end, to read those last few lines, to discover how your story ends?

Life is like this.  You are here and it is now.  Ahead of you lies many more sentences that you must write.  How your story will unfold is not yet defined.  You hold the pen poised above the paper. The shapes that it makes are your own to make, those shapes create the letters that form the story.  There will be influences and occurrences that are out of your control, but all of these will be necessary to help you, to move the story forward.  Like now, as I write, thoughts come unbidden to my mind, that influence the direction of my writing.  So too will it be with your life, with the events that are yet to come.  You will subtly, subconsciously alter the fabric of the story, bend it to your will, to try to make it flow the way that you wish.  I know this to be true because it is exactly what I have done. I created my own situation through subconscious thought, through positioning myself so that I was more able to take the opportunities that came my way.  I was not aware of it until after, but when I looked back, it was obvious that that is what I had been doing.  I could not alter the events ahead of me, but I could ensure that I was in the best possible situation to take advantage of what came my way.  And in so doing, to reach out for my dreams.  Those events would have come to me, come at me, and perhaps I would not have been able to react in the same way.  I see this as the definition of fortune.  Fortune is the ability to see and to grasp opportunity.  No one, and I mean this truly, no one is born unlucky, no one sits with a dark cloud above their head.  That cloud is of your own making, the way that you view life.  And if you were the creator, so too can you be the destroyer.  You hold the key and you hold the power over it.  The choice is yours and yours alone.

I thought the other day about a very dark chapter in my own life, a time when I was utterly lost, when I could not see any way out of the black that had consumed me.  I was in despair.  Everything that I had cherished and loved was taken from me.  I didn't see it coming and it left me in a state of shock.  In this moment of my life, I thought I was cursed, I believed more than ever that nothing ever worked out for me, that I was unlucky, that there was little point in continuing.  Every night I went to bed, I did not want to wake up because I knew that when I did, the reality of my situation would dawn on my all over again, and it would take me down further.  Had I been in a cafe and picked up my own life story and begun reading at this point, I would have wondered how such a thing could have happened, why someone with a good heart, who always tried so hard for others, could have befallen such a disaster.  And probably, because I'm a sucker for an underdog story, I would want the foolish boy who believed so much in the promise of love, to succeed, to find his way out and to have a happy ending.  I needed that dark chapter of my life, as much as I need the light.  That particular chapter was necessary to bring me to here and to now.  All of these years later, my life has turned into a voyage of discovery and adventure.  I'm still looking for that happiness that can only be found in love, but as surely as eggs are eggs, I don't want my ending to come just yet.  I still have so much to do, so much more to write and so many stories to tell my children.   

And so do you.  There are pages upon pages of blank whiteness ahead of you.  What is behind is gone.  It is done.  Now, here you stand.  At your feet lie a shield and a sword, all around you are the sounds and sights of the raging battle that is life.  It is your decision on whether you fight for the life that you want, whether you raise your shield to ward off the blows that will surely come, whether your swing your sword to strike down your enemies that will try to stop you.  Write you own story.  Don't get caught up in the past, don't think about now.  Instead, look to your future, decide what it is that you want, picture where you wish to go, and then fight for it.  Each strike of the enemy parried by your shield forms a letter, each swing of the sword creates the sentence.  Your story, your book, your ending.  You are not defined by who you are now, you are defined by who you will become and the writing of that story is in your own hands.  So, go write it.

_________________________

Endings and New Beginnings

Last night, I finished reading A Memory Of Light, the final installment in the Wheel Of Time series by Robert Jordan.  I began reading this fourteen book series way back in 1993, and for the last twenty years, it has been part of my life, accompanying me on my journey, through the changes I made in my life, and as I took a chance and discovered my true path.  As I approached the final few chapters of the final climatic volume, I was filled with a mix of emotions. I was happy that finally, I was going to discover how the story would end, and at the same time, I had another deeper feeling, one that came as a surprise. 

It began as I passed the half way point of the book.  There were now more pages that I had read, than there were remaining, and I knew that the end was approaching.  At this pivotal moment, a feeling began to grow within me.  At first it was easy to ignore, but with each proceeding evening, as I lay in bed reading, it grew stronger.  Eventually, as I faced the final few chapters, I had an overwhelming feeling that I did not want to actually finish the book.  Why was that?  Surely, I wished to know how everything worked out at the end?  Didn't I want to have the ending revealed and to know how each of the vast array of characters, and each of the many different story threads, would resolve themselves?  Yes I did, but at the same time, I did not.  This contradiction may seem like an odd set of emotions to occur, but actually, despite the absurdity of it, it made perfect sense to me.

You see, reading that last sentence and closing the book would finally end something that had been part of my life for so many years.  I had grown comfortable and familiar with having these books to read, with always waiting for the next installment to be published (time between each successive publication grew), with re-immersing myself into an alternative world that I had grown to know and love, with its myriad of characters that had personalities and behaviours that were so familiar to me, these people that seemed like old friends, and I never quite knew if the series would reach its conclusion, since Robert Jordan unfortunately died in 2007 before he had completed writing the final books.  To turn the final page would mean an end to all of this for me.  It would be a bitter sweet moment.  One that would bring me great joy and satisfaction and at the same time, it would bring with it a sadness and loss.  So, I began to think about endings and what they mean.

The end.  It's over.  Finished.  No more.  One moment you have it, you are immersed in it, your senses and emotions are connected to it, you're holding on to it, it's part of you, you are part of it.  And then suddenly you're not.  It's gone.  Blank.  Darkness.  Emptiness.  Sadness and loss.  Wishing you could go back again, to relive some of those times when you held it, when it held you.  But you cannot.  It feels as though a part of you is gone and only a hole remains.  You feel incomplete, no longer whole, as a piece of you is now missing.  And you fear what comes next, because it is unknown, it is going to be different.

Often, an ending seems negative.  That is because of the sense of loss that we feel and the feeling of emptiness that remains.  The endings that are particularly difficult are those that are forced upon us and those that involve the end of something that we have grown accustomed to having in our life.  Graduating from college, leaving home for the first time, leaving a long-term employment, the break up of a relationship, the death of a loved one.  Each of these marks a significant life event.  Each one represents an ending.  Equally as important though, is that each one represents something else.  A beginning.

An end is an important step along the path.  Each of us must face and deal with many endings on our journey, if we are to continue to seek out the light and obtain our dreams.  Without an ending, there can be no new beginnings.  With no end, there can be no new opportunity to learn and to grow, to discover new emotions, new places, new people, new experiences, and there can be no opportunity to evolve our soul.  Endings are a necessary part of the journey.

It is natural not to want an ending to something that you enjoy and love.  With the end, comes the unknown and with the unknown, comes fear.  Many people resist change simply because they are afraid of the unknown.  They prefer to stay in situations that they understand and can deal with, even though those situations maybe harmful, hurtful, negative and detrimental to their life.  Fear is a deeply paralysing emotion.   Through fear of the unknown comes a resistance to end, and because there is no ending for this person, there can be nothing new, there can be no evolution of the soul.

I see the end as simply the beginning.  It is the cycle of life in which we all exist.  Many beginnings, many endings.  Many endings, many beginnings.  It is how it has always been and it is how it always will be.  There is a saying that as one door closes, so another door opens.  The meaning is clear, an end is necessary in order to create some space in your life for something new.  Each time an end occurs, so too does a new beginning.  Each ending brings you a new opportunity.  It is actually a positive occurrence in life.  Even if at the time you cannot view it as such because the pain, resentment and bitterness of your loss is hard to bear, eventually, with hindsight, it will be possible to view it as such.

We need endings in our lives.  In life, everything eventually ends, so I guess we should get used to that notion.  Don't fear the end, instead, look forward to a new beginning, to a new opportunity that can be taken, to evolving your soul through growth.  Each new beginning leads you further along your path, brings you closer to the discovery of your dream.  I finished reading my book and as I closed it, I thanked Robert Jordan for keeping me company over all of these years, and I knew that now, I had created a little space for something new to come into my life.       

_________________________

This post is dedicated to the memory of Marge.  It was Marge who lent me her copy of The Wheel Of Time all those years ago and started me on that particular journey.  It was Marge who saw within me a caring heart and who was the first person to acknowledge that to me.  Thank you for the beginning, and thank you for the end.  I'll see you again one day my friend.

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, is often cited as a poem of great influence to those of us that wish to seek out an alternative life, to define a life of our own choosing.  We are the people who seek out the road not taken, looking to walk on paths where others, perhaps, fear to tread, paths that have an ending we cannot fathom, paths that take us away from our comfort zone and into the unknown, and that is precisely the appeal of them.  But what is the cost of doing so?  What lies down that other road, the road more travelled by, and by not taking that road, have we missed out on something?

How would my life have been, if I had not dared to take the road less travelled?  Would I now have all of those things that I want in life, but have still not achieved - a wife, a family, and a home?  Perhaps I would, maybe I would not.  I will never know, no one can ever know.  When we forsake one path for another, the other path is closed off to us forever.  Even if we are able to recover that path, to have a second opportunity to explore it, time will have passed, we will have gained new experiences, new insights, and we come to the path again as a slightly different person.  The path may appear to be the same, but our perception of it and of what it brings will be altered, even if we are not conscious of it.  And that will change everything.

I cannot regret my decisions.  Each time that I was presented with two diverging paths, I always took the one for which my heart yearned the most.  That is how I live my life, that is how I will always be.  My heart is me and I am my heart.  We are inseparable, for better or for worse.  I do not believe that I only ever took the path less travelled by, I never saw my decisions based on that concept.  I was presented with options, with opportunities, and my heart decided on the appropriate direction.  If my heart decided it, then my conclusion is that it must have been what I wanted.

This post has been prompted by the writing of a dear friend of mine.  She has questioned the meaning of the poem in her own life, and wonders whether taking the road less travelled has steered her life in the wrong direction.  Perhaps it has, but there is no way of ever knowing the answer.  Life brings to us all of the things that we need.  There is a saying that I hear often, "Be careful what you wish for".  The meaning of this is that if you wish hard enough for something, often it comes to fruition.  I believe that subconsciously, we work hard to create in our lives all of those things that we truly desire, to generate the opportunities that we seek.  I know that has been the truth of my own life.  This friend of mine became a friend because at some pivotal moment in my life, I took the road less travelled.  I dared to go down an alternative path, a path that was completely unknown to me, and down that path, I met my friend.  Had I not taken the road less travelled, we would never have met, we would not be friends, we would never have shared everything that we did, I would not have loved the way that I loved, I would not be here, now, sitting in Costa Rica as a scuba diving instructor, writing this blog, and I would not be able to look back with fondness on the moments and memories that we shared together, and know that my life is far richer for knowing her.  Her contribution to my life is immeasurable.  It makes me sad to think that she would be willing to exchange that for something else. To erase me from her memory,  as if I had never existed.  Rather like in the movie, It's A Wonderful Life, when George Bailey wishes that he had never been born.  Pull me out of the weave of her life, and so many memories, experiences, happiness, sadness, loss, love, laughter and giggles would be eroded and lost. 

The road less travelled is not the problem as I see it.  It is the perception of what that road has brought into your life that is the problem.  I guess that I am still walking the road less travelled, I am still pursuing my heart and my dreams.  I always will.  I trust that eventually my road will bring me to the place that I desire, that it will bring me those things of which I dream, that one day, I will be sitting and writing a blog about fatherhood and what it means to be a husband.  I know that if I wish it enough, that if I take the opportunities presented to me, then it will happen.  For me, the road less travelled has been a blessing.  There has been a price to pay, but I willing pay that price.  I would not change one thing about my life.  My life comes with sadness and frustration, with pain and a lack of love.  But it also comes with a deep sense of joy at being able to see life and the miracles that occur each and every day.

I cannot tell anyone what is the right or wrong decision or direction for them.  When two roads diverge in a wood, it can only be your own choice, your own decision, which path to take.  You'll know it when the moment arrives.  No amount of thinking will change the truth: that the decision was already made before you came to the divergence.  Your heart knows the way, your heart leads you always towards the light.  And in the light you must walk.  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all of the difference.  And for this I am mightily glad.   



The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

_________________________

Confidence in Self

Some people are just born lucky.  Good fortune and luck always seems to come their way.  They are the people who get the breaks, gain promotions, get the girl (or guy) and seemingly have opportunities fall into their laps.  There is a saying that fortune favours the brave.  But bravery alone is not the answer.  When it comes to matters of good fortune and luck, bravery has a partner, and that partner goes by the name Self Confidence.

When I reflect on my own life, it is absolutely clear to me that my self confidence has played a key role in two distinct areas of my life, those of work and love.  In terms of my self confidence, these two areas are poles apart, as different as night and day, and because of this, the luck and the opportunities afforded me, are remarkably different too.  In the one where I consider myself to possess a high degree of self confidence, I seem to have been blessed with some very good fortune and many great opportunities, which I recognised and seized upon.  In the other, where my confidence is low, if not lacking entirely, I consider myself cursed by ill luck and misfortune, where opportunities are few and far between. 

When I first started my working life, I suffered from a general lack of self confidence.  But what I found in the office and among my fellow colleagues, was that I was able to leave behind everything that had gone before and I entered a new world, a world where I quickly felt comfortable, a place where I felt I belonged.  More importantly perhaps, was that in the office, no one knew who I was.  None of the people who had been in my life, putting me down, teasing me, telling me I was no good, were around.  I was able to be myself, to start over with a clean slate.  I discovered that here was a place where I was respected, where I was able to learn and understand the processes and how things were done, and where my way of thinking allowed me to excel.  My confidence began to grow and as it grew, so I worked hard and pushed hard, and in return, so too did the responsibilities that I was given increase.  The more responsibilities that I had, the more my confidence in myself and what I was doing grew.  I entered a phase of positivity, where my success grew my confidence, which in turn led directly to further success.  I was able to see potential opportunities and I worked hard to make them mine.  With my confidence, I pushed and I made it known that I was ambitious, that I had the ability, and I proved it to my superiors and to myself.  I felt as though there was nothing that I could not do and I believed that I was just as able, if not more able, than anyone else.  In this guise, I possessed the confidence to stand up in front of 800 fellow employees and deliver a presentation; I could voice valid points and concerns at important meetings; I could dial in to teleconferences with some of the corporation's vice presidents and they would seek my opinions on certain subjects where I was deemed an expert in my field; I was offered and secured an international assignment overseas; and I held multiple management positions.  In short, from humble beginnings, I was able to enjoy a successful career, one in which opportunities arrived and one in which I feel I benefited from great fortune and luck to have experienced. 

Then there is my love life.  This is an area of my life in which I have zero confidence.  From my being overweight as a child and adolescent, and from asking girls on dates and being constantly rejected, my self confidence ebbed away and for many years, there was nothing that came along to replenish it.  With each new rejection, it became increasingly difficult for me to find the courage to ask again.  I began to believe that I must be ugly, worthless and offer nothing desirable to the opposite sex.  Even after I had my first girlfriend and first experience of love, this lack of confidence was so strong, I could do nothing to change it.  If I saw a girl I liked and was attracted to, I could not walk over to her.  I knew that if I did, I would not be able to find any words to speak, at least no words that I believed would be of any interest to her, and more than likely, my advances would be rejected anyway.  At a nightclub, if was dancing next to a girl I liked and another guy came along and began to show her interest, I would immediately back off, believing that the other guy had the better chance and that I should just save myself the embarrassment and humiliation.  Because of my actions in these situations, my chances and opportunities to find love remained low.  I did nothing to enhance them, nothing to grow my confidence.  So entrenched in my psyche was the idea that I was ugly and worthless, that I was unable to alleviate this way of thinking.  Every action that I took, served only to compound and exacerbate the problem.  And it remains this way even now.   


Let me use a recent situation from my own life to illustrate how confidence plays its part in luck and fortune.  Only a few weeks ago, there was a girl, Marie Claire, who came out diving one morning, and whilst I was giving the dive briefing prior to our first dive, I felt a strong sense of attraction towards her.  It was a powerful, overwhelming feeling, one that I had not experienced since the break up with my ex last year.  As I was in my work mode, I was confident, happy, and engaging, easily making conversation with everyone, keeping everyone entertained.  The attraction to Marie Claire continued throughout the morning and by the time we surfaced from our second dive, I had decided that I would ask if she would like to have a drink with me that evening (as I knew she was leaving Costa Rica the following day), when a suitable moment presented itself.  However, the closer we came back to shore, the more I felt my confidence beginning to ebb slowly away.  By the time everyone was back at the dive centre, my confidence, which had been brimming over back on the boat, out in the ocean, was now almost non-existent.  A perfect opportunity arose to talk to Marie Claire, as she was standing quietly and alone outside.  I looked at her standing there and I made the assumption that if she was interested in me, then she would not be standing outside on her own, away from where I was.  I wanted to act, but I froze, my self confidence was gone and with it, my ability to walk out to talk with her.  In this moment of self doubt, and in this moment of hesitation, so too was my opportunity lost.  Marie Claire left and I was left wondering what might have been.

A few days later, I needed to ask Marie Claire something related to the diving the day that she had been with me, and so began a conversation via e-mail.  After a few exchanges, I decided to let her know that I had wanted to ask her for a drink, because I knew now that since she was back home in the States, nothing could come of it and I thought it would be nice for her to know the impression that she had left on me.  Marie Claire replied that she had been thinking the same, that she too was going to ask me for a drink that evening, and that I should have asked her.  An opportunity was missed, a chance wasted, the curse of my bad luck had struck again.  And why?  Only because I severely lack confidence in myself when it comes to matters relating to the opposite sex. 

How many opportunities have I missed due to my complete lack of self confidence?  How many times could I have crossed the dance floor to ask a girl to dance with me?  How many times could I have asked a girl to have a drink with me?  Too many.  In the same way that I consider myself very lucky in my work life, I consider myself unlucky in the extreme in my love life.  But this is actually nothing to do with luck.  I have experienced just the same amount of luck and opportunity as the next person.  What separates them from me is our own level of self confidence, our ability to believe in ourselves.  The lucky guy who always gets the girl, is the confident guy.  Confidence breeds opportunity, since those people who are confident will push themselves and will take the opportunities that come their way.  A lack of confidence means less opportunity, and less opportunity inevitably is seen as meaning less luck.  It really is very simple.
If you find yourself cursing your poor luck or the lack of opportunities in your life, ask yourself whether that is actually the truth, or whether perhaps, the truth is more a question of your confidence in the given situation.  How do you build confidence?  The only way is to push through the doubt and the fear and to seek the truth for yourself.  Even if what you find is not that which you looked for, knowing that you sought it in the first place makes all of the difference.  And each time you try, each time you push yourself forward, you will generate opportunity and with that opportunity will come luck and success.  That is how confidence is created.  Through trying, we dispel all fears of failure.  We learn to understand that through trying, we create more opportunities, we increase the probability of success, and therefore reduce the chances of failure.

Watch a baby trying to learn to walk. It totters on its legs, takes a step, perhaps it falls.  It gets up again, totters, takes a step, then another.  Maybe it falls again. But the baby has learned something very important.  It has learned that it could take two steps, the next time it will try to make three.  Slowly and surely, the baby grows confident and learns to walk.  We each must do the same in our lives.  If you lack confidence, do not shy away from the fight.  Instead, climb to your feet, take a stand, and take a step forward.  Perhaps you will fall and be defeated.  But perhaps you will not.  Perhaps you will be victorious.  Unless you try, you will never know.  And from each step that you take, you will grow your confidence.  The journey along the one true path is just a series of small steps after all.

I shall not regret that I did not ask Marie Claire to have a drink that day, since regret is useless and wasteful, but I shall do my best to not let it happen again.  After all, fortune favours the self confident, right?

_________________________

When We Encounter Setbacks On The Path

There will come certain days, when you suffer a disappointment or a setback. Everything feels like it has gone wrong, that no matter how hard you struggle to do the right things, nothing you try works out in the way that you had planned.  It is possible to feel the clouds swirling around inside your head, clogging your thoughts, denying you the sunshine and the light.  It becomes difficult to stir yourself to action.  Your limbs feel heavy and weary, and seem to resist your every movement.  You ask yourself, "What is the point in all of this?", "Why do I try so hard and only seem to suffer as a consequence of my actions?", "Why is life unfair to me?", "Why do I work so hard and not get anywhere?"  The urge to give up comes upon you like the rushing storm waters from the broken levee.  It is easier to succumb, to give up, than it is to continue the fight.  Everything tells you to quit, to give in, and to give up the fight.

The journey on the one true path is like this.  Never be fooled into thinking that the discovery of your one true path means that the fight is over, that now come the easy days of glory and reward.  No.  The discovery of your one true path means that the true fight is only just beginning.  You fought before.  You may have had just cause and held strong beliefs and convictions in what you fought for.  On the one true path you will understand what it means to fight the true fight.  To fight for the very thing that grants you the ultimate gift in life.  You fight for your heart and you fight with your heart, since your heart is both your companion and your weapon.  And together you fight for your dreams, and you fight for the true cause: to keep walking your one true path.

Not every day can be filled with joy and happiness.  That is impossible.  Life teaches us that there is the need for balance and the need for harmony in everything, and that includes our own journey.  Birth is balanced by death.  Growth is balanced by decay.  Summer is balanced by winter.  Light is balanced by dark.  Everyone suffers disappointments and setbacks.  That is how it is, how it is always going to be.  But when you walk your one true path, those setbacks will not deter you from walking on.  On the true path, nothing can throw you off, nothing can defeat you.  If you are truly on the path that is right for you, then you will understand that moments and days will come when you need to pause on the journey, and you need to take some time for reflection and meditation.

Everyone, every single one of us, no matter our circumstances, will suffer a disappointment or a defeat at some point in time.  I know beyond all doubt that I am now walking my one true path, but there are days when I too feel disappointment, when I suffer a setback, and when I question what I am doing.  It is too easy to look upon others and think that they have it easy, that good luck and fortunate falls their way, since they never show disappointment nor sadness in life.  Do not be fooled though.  These are the people who perhaps suffer more than any one else.  These are often the people who hide their true feelings in order to spare others their pain, anguish and problems.  These people suffer quietly, privately and alone.  I am like this.  I try hard to avoid giving my problems to others, I suffer in my own silence and suffer I do.  I show only the positive side of myself to the world and I hide my pain.  I work through my feelings, I come to terms with them, and I move on again.

It is not the setback, pain, despair, nor the disappointment that defines where we are, nor who we are.  It is how we deal with them that determines everything that is to come.  Every disappointment that we encounter is an opportunity to learn and to better understand ourselves, and by doing so, to evolve the spirit.  When we feel joy and elation, we do not feel any need to self-analyse.  We readily accept the good times as they are, we welcome them, and we bask in their glow.  When the bad times arrive, and they inevitably will, then we have a choice to make.  The easy option is often to give in and retreat, turning a disappointment into a loss, perhaps even turning away from the chosen path.  Alternatively, you can accept what has happened, analyse it, understand it, and to learn from it.  When we choose this course of action, then we parry the blade of defeat and we deflect its blow.  We are not victorious, but we remain undefeated, and more able to continue the journey at a later date.

If you give in and retreat, then you have surely lost the battle.  If you decide to take the easy way and to lose in this manner, then you learn nothing from the experience.  You deny yourself the chance to learn and from that learning, the chance to act differently, should the same, or similar, situation occur again in the future.  And what life shows us, is that the same situation will come around again, until you are able to deal with it in the right way.  If you feel a strong conviction in your heart, then never be put off, never be thrown off the path on which you walk.  If the path that you walk is not your true path, then a defeat, even a small defeat, will easily deter you.

By learning from this disappointment, it is possible to take a negative situation and to turn it into something positive.  To progress in life, it is imperative that we each learn from our mistakes and from our setbacks.  A setback should be seen as an opportunity to learn, to better understand, and in understanding, to prevent the same thing from happening again, or at least, if it does, to handle it differently.  Perhaps you'll ask yourself the following questions:-

- What went wrong?
- Was it something that I did that caused it?
- Could I have acted differently?
- Can I change what has happened and make a different outcome?  (If yes, then go and do it!)
- Were my expectations too high?
- What will I do the next time I encounter a similar situation? (Because you surely will.)

Those that walk their one true path know that setbacks are just a necessary part of the journey.  They see them not as problems, not as barriers to success, nor as reasons to give up, but as opportunities to learn, to evolve, and to grow the spirit.  That is what our journey through life is all about.  And one day, you will reach your destination, fulfil your dream, and live out the life that is your true purpose and calling.  On the true path, your one true path, no amount of setbacks can prevent you from reaching the light and from reaching the love.

_________________________