What Do I Want To Do with my Life? 


Jim makes a right turn on life's highway. 

Something keeps coming up again and again in my life, like crabgrass in sidewalk joints. Just last week, I rooted it out, I thought, and here it is, the biggest weed I've ever seen. Internal bickering is the crabgrass of my mind garden. Not everyone, apparently, has this weed, and yet—since it's not a weed we like others to see—I wonder how many of the rest of you might also fight this constant battle.

I'm going to take my relationship with Stephen as an example, but I have discovered that if I ever get that relationship in balance, an Anne or Tom variety leaps up to take the place of the Stephen variety. For me, this is a problem not with that relationship, but with intimate relationships in general. So here goes. Maybe I'll catch myself convincing me that Stephen isn't attentive enough to me or that he's asked me to do too many things. Maybe it's an imagined dialog about why we do or don't need to buy something. The sky can be blue, birds can be singing, flowers bursting into bloom, and there's Jim yammering to himself about Stephen this or Stephen that. Almost always, it happens when Stephen isn't around to defend himself.

A couple of days ago, I put the kibosh on this by just saying "No!" when I caught myself at it. That works for a while. Several "Nos!" can actually lead to a complete cessation of this internal bickering for a while. But ultimately, this little technique is just as ineffective as ripping out the crabgrass in real life sidewalks—it grows back.

Today, I've had a new insight. Today I asked the question "Why are there cracks in the sidewalk of my life?" This is the mental equivalent of shifting from a focus on what is wrong with Stephen (or whomever) to a focus on what is wrong with me. Actually, I asked God to help me with the "Nos!" and instead I got a new insight. That has happened often in my life. The insight that I received came in the form of a question: "Jim, what do you want to do with your life?" Wow. What a difference that question has made. I've always known that somehow this internal incessant critiquing of this or that about a person or situation was a waste of time, but now I see lucidly why that is. So let me see if I can contrast the old and the new mental process.

In the old crabgrass variety of thinking, I am more or less wanting something from a specific person or situation that I am not getting, and on top of that, I'm not too reflective or clear about what it is that I am more or less wanting. Oh, I could probably be specific if called upon, but the point is, I am busy focusing on the inadequacy of external aids to get what I want. In the new crack-free sidewalk way of thinking, I am not tying what I want to a specific person or situation, and on top of that, I am getting calmly and cooly reflective about exactly what I want, and from a life's-eye view. On this smooth street, I do not have to find anyone or anything inadequate because they are not helping me. Instead, if I can just get clear on what it is that I want to be doing with my life, I can get busy identifying or creating the helps I need to get where I want to go.

So, what DO I want to do with my life? The short answer is: what I've always wanted, or at least, what I've wanted for a long, long time. A little longer answer is this one: to have friends, family, and a significant other to share life with, and the health and resources to do this. To be creative in several ways: making websites, playing the piano, reading and writing, traveling. And for me, the most important of all is to have a meaningful relationship with the source of my own creativity and ability to love. Many people call that God.

It feels as if I've thrown off an enormous yoke and bounced up on my tippy-toes, smiling and full of energy. Nothing has changed really except my focus. Stephen hasn't changed, yet I love him even more. Suddenly, there are just no barriers to doing what I want to do with my life. I can think about that, now that the crabgrass is gone.

And more to come . . . .
. . . . on Stephen's goals compared to mine
. . . . on being gentle-in-the-world 

Posted: Sat - March 4, 2006 at 06:12 PM          

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