To wander without a clear destination can be uncomfortable. We would rather stand with our certainties, even when they are an obstruction. Why is this our go-to pattern? We are creatures of habits that we didn’t dream up. They are cultural habits and in our DNA. If we can muster the tenacity to stay in liminality long enough, our foundation will crack. We will see a shift in our coherence that starts to deconstruct many fixed views.
In May 2020 I have taken a leap of faith. Some will say I have walked away from the perfect opportunity. I stepped back from my constant go-go-go for work and then found myself ready to leave my corporate job. I had to free myself from the job that was killing me. Albeit slowly, but I was developing the physical and mental habitual life of modernism. I don’t expect many to see the value in this exercise. I do know that what I am doing will have a ripple effect. The outcome of that ripple is not mine to determine, but to experience.
At first, I was overly concerned with the reactions of my clients, friends, and family. Constantly playing stories in my head of how I would react or explain my rational. Honestly, what rational is there to explain? All this really means is that I am trying to rationalize it myself. It’s not others I was concerned with, it was me.
The second realization is when others did want an explanation. How can you express something that you are still working on? The words would just serve as a false view that most likely stems from fear and anxiety. Their response would probably be similar, given they would hear a false view. The answer is in my previous sentence. I’m still working on it. One constant challenge is the habit of reaching for my phone to check emails that don’t exist. We forget how dependent we have become to these things. The idea of not reacting to some activity on it brings about anxiety. The modern thinking that one must be doing something with one’s time. It’s not enough to “just be” these days. Sometimes doing nothing is doing something.
What to do with one’s life?
During a personal retreat and the liminal space of January 2022, I had a question. At the time, I had walked away from work life and a few associates that I called friends. Over the month, I meditated, read, practiced, and spent quality time with family. Doing my best to ignore the comments in my head or from those that saw aversion to my retreat.
The fear that arouses when you have uncertainty can be challenging to renounce. Even with the abundance of teaching, it is finding awareness in the teaching that must bloom. Finding oneself searching for the answers when they lay promptly at your feet.
The realization of what to do with my life wasn’t about a financial one. That along with all the other causes of suffering can never provide the true answer. The answer was so simple, and yet my ignorant mind can’t normally grasp it. To “Sit with It” is the challenge.
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