December 1, 2003 PlanetLightworker Newsletter

Where am I going?

In the summer of 2002, I wrote three Modest Proposal newsletters discussing these topics (my personal answers at that time appear following the questions):

1. Who am I? "I am nothing, and I am everything."
2. Where did I come from? "I have always been."
3. Why am I here? “I am here to reconnect with our divinity by unconditionally loving myself.”

On examination of my answers a year and a half later, I believe that they hold up pretty well for me. Please remember that they are my answers, and I do not assume that they are everyone’s answers – far be it for me to be that arrogant. There is a fourth question however, that I did not consider at the time that has recently come forth for me: “Where am I going?” The first three questions address the present, the past, and my reason for being here. They beg the question of how do I get “there” – to satisfy the reason for being here?

As with the original three questions, the only valid answer is a personal one. I don’t know anybody who knows where humanity is headed much less any individual other than him or herself although there are some who claim to have such knowledge. That’s another topic for another time. For now, please come with me as I explore the question of “Where am I going?”

If this question is asked of the person in the street, most answers would of course be in the domain of where is the person physically headed at that time: home, market, work, wherever. These temporal responses are understandable as they relate to the three dimensional world which is our physical home. The question, however, like any generalized question, has many interpretations, and the question itself has no hints as to what the questioner is really intending. It is left to the person questioned to interpret. From what perspective would you answer?

For me, because of the person doing the asking and the circumstances of how the question was presented, my interpretation was spiritual. How am I conducting my life as an awakened (more or less) spiritual journeyer on a path of awareness (much of the time)? The caveats (more and much) are not self-effacing but simply recognize that I am not in a spiritual mode 100% of the time. I, like most of us, have my moments when my spiritual awareness is somewhere over the hill.

Where AM I going (spiritually)? When I started thinking about that question, what came to mind is that my goal is to inspire others to awaken to who they truly are and to learn to love themselves unconditionally. I expressed this goal over ten years ago. Any organizational consultant worth his or her salt will tell you that goals should be:

1. Periodically reexamined for their current validity, and
2. How well have they been accomplished.

Well, I am a small organization of one, but the principle to review goals and adjust if needed is just as valid. Here is my personal analysis.

Is my goal of being inspiring still valid? Yes, goodness only knows I needed inspiration to get this far, and everyone that I know who has awakened has had inspiration of some kind. Let’s face it. Awakening is hard work (simple but not easy), and each of us needs something to blast us out of our complacency (even if it is miserable) to consider that life COULD be different. Once that switch gets thrown, the task is to figure out what life could be like, or “Where am I going?”

OK, the goal IS still valid, but how am I interpreting the goal? Interesting question that – up to this time, I made a number of assumptions about my interpretation of how to inspire. Assumptions are OK as long as I realize that they are “assumptions” and not necessarily fact. I think I erred on that one. My assumptions were about “doing.” So I “did” writing, coaching, and teaching – all designed to inspire people to awaken. Why was this in error?

To answer that question, I want to first answer how well did I do in inspiring others to awaken? I think not very well. I can number on one hand those people that I really think awoke out of something that I “did.” Not a great result when considering that I started “doing” over ten years ago. Oh sure, I have gotten thousands of emails from folks telling me that what I wrote or said “made a difference” for them. Well, maybe it did, and maybe it didn’t, for I personally know that the first blush of awareness of something new can be intoxicating but does not always linger long.

Should I abandon “doing?” No, my inner guidance says NO, yet there is still an undercurrent of discomfort about that being all there is. OK fine, I know that some of you are going to write me and say, “If you supported just ONE person in awakening, that is great, and you need nothing more.” You are correct; it is great, and I am grateful for the opportunity to have been the prime mover of just one person’s awakening or even a part of it. Truly, I am. What greater gift could I give?

On the other hand, there is a niggling doubt about that comparison of “what greater gift?” I think that what I am missing is: what is the “greatest” gift that I can give? That question sparked an epiphany of sorts. The flash of insight is that the greatest gift is I. That does not mean that I will come to your house and wash your car. How I am “being” with you whether personally, in writing, or in spirit is the greatest gift that I can bestow. I call this emotional honesty. Just being who I am in the moment is what is; not something I made up to motivate you to like me, fear me, respect me, or is “spiritually correct.” If I am emotionally honest with you, perhaps you can be emotionally honest with me, and from that we can BOTH awaken a bit more, and move forward an inch or two. That is enough.

As an example of “Where I have BEEN going,” something that I recently wrote was described as “pretentious.” I looked up the word so I could better understand what it meant. (You know how you use words sometimes thinking you know the meaning but really don’t? I do that quite often.)

Pretentious: adjective… (2) having or creating a deceptive outer appearance of great worth; ostentatious.

What was pretentious about what I wrote was not the content. It was how I had adorned the subject with my own coloration about “how” the content should be used. It was about “doing,” not being. I realized that I had leapfrogged over “being” and went directly to “doing,” so I restructured the content as was suggested to me and the result was how to be with the information such that anyone could create his or her own style of “doing,” rather than mine. I could see that because of how I originally structured “doing” the content could cause some readers to say, “Sheesh, I am not doing it THAT way.” The goal is to inspire through informing, not dictating – a huge lesson for me.

To circle back to the beginning, my response to “Where am I going?” is now: “My goal is to inspire others to awaken to who they truly are and to learn to love themselves unconditionally (here is the new part:) by “being” emotionally honest, informing not dictating, and supporting as requested.” I like this and it feels good. I got to do this because someone was emotionally honest with me about how I had been “doing.” Because of that, I reexamined the original three questions and realized there was a fourth question: “Where am I going?” In the examination of that question, I looked at my ledger to checkpoint where I was. That was a shock, a good one, and I am grateful for the wakeup call. I am not proposing anything to you. I am simply committing to be emotionally honest with you, the readers of this newsletter, as well as to the people in my life.

The classic triad of “be, do, have” is still very valid. The trick, I think, is to do them in order. I began my awakened journey of spiritual evolution in the proper sequence. Somewhere, I reversed the order, and pretentiousness resulted – still another lesson. All three are equally valid. For me, the “have” step begins with an intention, and so, where AM I going? To get there, I need to “be” in such a way that what I “do” becomes clear in terms of what is the way to achieve the maximum result of “having” my intention manifested. That will take some work, but I am up for that.

NOTE: If you are interested in reading the three Modest Proposals addressing the original questions, they can be found in the Modest Proposals archives.

May you discern with compassion,

Ron