Hi Lenne,

I can empathise with all that you have said and believe I can offer some helpful advice. I just created a blog the other week and my opening post (one paragraph long) addresses your problem about whether to do the course or not http://benwardzinski.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/trial-and-error-to-find-your-purpose.html. What has happened is you started ANALYSING. Generally this messes everything up because it creates so much turmoil in your head you lack the clarity to see the best decision to make. So, learn to stop analysing. Your mind is capable of rationalising almost anything (even making immoral decisions in life sometimes), I’m sure you could argue logically either way whether to do your course or not, that’s why it’s no way to make a decision. Sure logical thinking has it’s place, but I find most of the time it creates a block.

When you just decide like you said “on impulse”, from what I’ve read and believe it is very important to follow this. You’ve simply blocked yourself by bringing in your thinking mind. This is one of the main purposes of meditation, to drop the thinking mind, which leads to a calm mind, and from a calm mind comes clarity – to see the right thing to do. As soon as you start analysing, and it’s so easy to do because it seems like what you need to do to come to a decision, but in fact the more analysing you do the further you move away from being in a good state to make the best decision. It’s one of those strange paradoxes. Those impulse decisions come from your subconcious mind (which is far more powerful than your conscious thinking mind). It has access to way more information than your thinking mind (and it’s quiet voice is very easily drwoned out by the noise created by the thinking mind), some would say it has access to higher wisdom also. The thing is, it is beyond your comprehension to work out all the causes and effects taking the course might have on your life, that if anything is justification enought not to base such decions on the thinking mind. For example, I read recently a commemmoration speech given by the late Steve Jobbs of Apple. In it he said how before he had found what he was looking and after just quitting his degree that he just decided to take classes that he felt interested in/drawn to, and one of these was calligraphy. He said, I paraphrase, “What practical use could calligraphy possibly be to me” (again logical mind), but he did it anyway. Later on his study of calligraphy had a major influence on his development of the typeface used in Apple computers. I’m not saying that this course could have such an impact on your own life but I hope you see the point I’m trying to make of the importance of following your gut.

I practice the martial art of Aikido (which means ‘the way to harmony with the universe’). The correct way to do technique reflects surprisingly accurately the way to live life. When you said, “Every single day, I think about what I like and what I want out of life and every single day I come up with little”, I used to do (and sometimes still do) just this. You’re really striving hard for the answers, and I’m betting it causes you a fair amount of frustration and suffering right, and gets you nowhere? It’s like you’re trying to force life, you want the answers, you want to know what to do now! Aikido teaches you to STOP STRIVING. Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean you should make no effort in life, the difference is subtle. Sometimes in Aikido someone comes to attack me and I throw them and it feels like I didn’t do anything, It’s almost effortless. I’ve been told at these times that this was because I did the technique correct (i.e. having the correct principles in mind and body). This is a direct reflection of how to live life. When you try too hard to throw someone it just doesn’t work, it creates resistance. If you try and try to work out what you should do it’s the same thing, it’s having a ‘fighting mind’, it’s trying to push life, it creates resistance. to quote Wayne Dyer, “you can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it”. This is what I’ve been taught in Aikido. Most people, when they meet problems they crash imto them and burn a lot of energy trying to force it there way. In Aikido, when you meet a problem, you relax, the tougher the problem the more relaxed you become (again paradox). When you are relaxed you mind is calm which allows you to FEEL your way to the solution. It’s the way of non-resistance and it’s a whole lot easier than how most people deal with problems. The Way is soft and gentle and relaxed, you go with the flow. It’s not suffering and burning your energy up.

I can really empathise with you not really caring about getting a ‘real job’. I used to feel just that way. I had no idea what I wanted to do and would just be faking it if I tried to be enthusiasistic applying for most jobs. You sound like you’re kind of in ‘no man’s land’ at the moment’. With Aikido still in mind, I’d say embrace it, relax into it and accept it firstly. Second, make yourself positive, focus on the positives that your current situation and job gives. I think you are actually in a very good position. The fact that you do have a job gives you certain freedoms: money to start exploring what you feel like exploring. By the sounds of it your job isn’t too committing so you have the flexibility to move to something more fulfilling (if necessary) when the time comes. I think it is very important first though to drop any negativity about you current job by focusing on the positive in order to be able to stay positive so that you move forward positively. Otherwise you’ll lkely try to change your circumstances and just end up in a similar or worse situation. This will take time so will require much patience. There will also be times when you slip up so perseverance is also essential to dust yourself off and get back on track.

Good luck! Whatever you do keep going!

Ben.

Lenne,

I’m sorry for your suffering, and can understand why you are feeling unsettled. There are many choices, competing needs, pressures from other people, and so on, and they compact and fill up our brain with what ifs. Dear friend, that is where to focus your energy, your attention. A few things came.to heart as I read your words.

Consider that with all the chaos happening around you, it is very normal and natural to feel unsafe… a restlessness to be elsewhere. But consider that you have a lot of great things going for you. You’re compassionate, have working sense organs, muscles, intelligence, and so forth. You have many years ahead of you to dance and explore, the illusion that it all needs to be worked out now is a paper tiger. Apart from not knowing what to do next, do you like what you do? Then do it some more! If you don’t, look around and find something that sparkles (and if it also benefits others, even better) and jump. There’s no need to be afraid, you’re clearly really smart. You’ll find your way.

Consider that when we get “sucked into” a situation (such as other peoples expectations, our fear of failure and so on) it becomes much harder to find our way, because we’re taking into account things that don’t matter. Your friend, who says “get a real job”, for instance, need have no bearing on your decisions… so letting that voice add layers to your confusion is silly. That doesn’t sound like love to me, not like grace… so abandon it!

Simply by getting back to the feeling safety, of patience with yourself, gentleness for yourself. Let the friends poke be about her. You’re smart, caring, and will figure it out as you keep exploring. Don’t let their impatience push you… they’re your steps, your canvas to paint.

With warmth,
Matt

Hi Matt,

I perhaps didn’t emphasise enough the subtlety I’m getting at. I’m trying to draw a distinction between striving/fighting which casues suffering and inner turmoil versus making effort. It’s not about “I must be in harmony”, it’s about the way you approach life and situations. Your description of bending to the flow of an attacker is quite an accurate description. In Aikido we blend with the incoming energy (i.e. acceptance) and then lead it away to the most mutually benefical end possible. Just as in life, when you have circumstances you don’t like it first requires some level of acceptance of the situation in order to allow you to proceed positively and subsequently achieve a positive outcome. If on the other hand you are in a situation you don’t like such as a job and you resist instead and are thinking about how much you hate it etc, this creates such inner resistance that it makes it much more difficult to move forward in the best way, i.e. it stops you from being open and positive (so you are more receptive to new opportunities), everything just becomes a struggle, that’s what I mean by striving here.

Your example of burning yourself on the stove, you have a reflex response to move your arm away, that isn’t striving in the sense that I mean, I’m talking as I said about the way you approach life.

When you talk about ‘striving as a part of the life ‘path’, I agree that recognising that something is out of balance or certain of your needs are not getting met and then being assertive in order to get them met is important. This doesn’t conflict with what I’m talking about. Again, it’s about the approach. It’s about working with life rather than against the flow of it. So, you recongnise that something is out of sink and then set about changing it, but you do so calmy and positively to achieve the best possible outcome rather than just getting angry and upset and saying to yourself it shouldn’t be this way. Saying “I will be in harmony!” is just resistance not acceptance. But pf course you are still aiming for harmony. What I’m getting at is aptly summed up by the song “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream”. You are actively partaking in discovering yourself, in rowing down the stream of life, but you do so gently, not exhausting yourself rowing as fast as you can and getting all stressed out in the process trying to get to a more pleasent part of the stream.

On a last note, I met a woman recently (late middle age, middle-eastern) who was working at reception late one evening and I was really taken aback by her when she dealt with me. There were a number of reasons for this: she had no rush about her, she just went about my request so calmly and yet very efficiently, there was no inner conflict about her. She wasn’t all beaming smiles, it was much more effortless than that, just at peace with herself and everything around her, I could feel it. I was taken aback because it was so untypical of how most people are, to truly feel that someone has no rush about them, it’s hard for me to get all the meaning across just saying that. Essentially there was no striving about her, she wasn’t after anything. I told her and asked her about it and she said to me that “Life is actually very easy, it’s just that we make it difficult”. It’s like she just knew intuitively not to strive. I think perhaps what I’m ultimately saying is that trying to change your circumstances to become more happy is not the answer. Happiness comes from within (as we hear all the time but I think it is not understood). By all means try to change your circumstances for the better but don’t make this mean ‘I can’t be happy until I have done so’, you read about people doing this all the time, e.g. dream job, etc, they get it and find there’s still something missing. Isn’t this what the Buddha taught, that trying to get rid of all the unpleasent things from your life and have more pleasent things, people, etc in your life with the aim of becoming happier this way just causes suffering, it’s grasping, instead drop the judgement, accept.