First Post: Where am I?

I start this journey on a different footing than those first steps I took on October 1, 2007. Perhaps because my pain is less, the questions that drive me seem to have less justification. Perhaps because the pressing absence of career, home and partner were brought into focus during three months in Melbourne, my spiritual longings have come into question as a form of escape.

I did not mention my reservations to anyone back home. Why add fuel to such a typical and convenient point of view.

So I bound my volition to a memory of certainty, and then with characteristic debilitated determination, I packed my backpack and boarded the flight.

first stop, thailand

And now from the road I must ask, is this a continuation of my Journey Always Waiting, or is this a somewhat separate Part II? Am I starting up where I left off, or has the dilution of last Journey’s lessons by the ordinary life in between deposited me at a new drop-in point, a place somewhat estranged from the fertile grounds I was ready to harvest?

Does this Journey need a new name?

I have friends who would tell me to stop thinking about it. That it’s really of no consequence whether I am continuing, or starting again. That these are technicalities, and distractions from the only reality of true importance here… that I have taken off on a personal journey of one year, and that I am free to make of it what I wish.

They would say that the best story is the one that lies ahead, and that I do not need, nor should I want, to define it now. That I should realize what a rare and incredible gift I have given myself, and that I should walk forward with eyes and heart open, and not look back.

They are right, of course, although in an idealistic, liberated from the bench, sort of way.

For all its exhilaration, unlocking the potential of a year’s growth at this stage of my life is no trivial thing. Taking a year out to Quest is an uncalculated risk, with uncertain outcomes on the other side. I step into the light of possibilities prepared to accept that what I learn may influence the rest of my life. I realize that what I am looking for out here, may guide, or confuse me, forever.

But, why must I take it all so seriously, my friends would ask.

second stop, china

Obviously, I have a tendency towards serious analysis of almost anything. I also skew left brain in my weaknesses and right brain in my strengths. I am also overly hard on myself, and tend to feel gravely responsible for faults and offences that most others simply write off as par for the socio-emotional course.

Guilty.

But knowing this about myself gives me something valuable to work on. Acknowledging how I am feeling, particularly when the reasons for these feelings are self-defeating, is a form of self-awareness that provides a baseline for development.

And that’s why it’s important for me to understand why I feel like I do, as I start this next phase of my Journey Always Waiting. In part – in large part – so I can chart my progress.

Last year, this was somewhat easier. I set out on October 1, 2007 in total possession of my moment in time, and with acute awareness of what had passed, and why, and of how much I wanted to feel and learn of myself and of the world. For these reasons, arriving at my Final Post five months later was one of the most significant crossings of my life.

third stop, indonesia

This time, things are a little blurrier. I have a nagging sense of skirting professional development. And am anxious that after two years of living in this way, that I will have become irreversibly unconventional, horrified by the sham of work with weekends, and unable to commit to a job or a city for long enough to become stable.

There’s really no reason to disagree with me. These are all highly reasonable outcomes.

However, I am not driven by a desire to be highly reasonable. And I am also not interested in acting out of fear or insecurity.

The unknown is only frightening because it is unknown… not because there is really anything out there to fear.

So, while it’s fair enough that my social conditioning is doing what it is programmed to do, my impulse to pacify it is not more valuable than my impulse to ignore it.

Because what I learned on my last trip is that what I do with my vast range of impulses, is entirely up to me.

I can choose.


And so I have chosen to continue on this Journey, to deepen and expand the lessons of my last trip; which through their deep impact on me, have already begun to change the authority from which I operate...

• i alone am responsible for my thoughts, for my actions (including reactions), and for the life I choose to live.
• the deepest and most lasting happiness is the experience of serving others, not yourself.
• compassion is without any doubt the path to happiness, and away from anger.
• the peace that I seek will elude me for as long as I lack loving kindness for myself.
• it requires discipline, hard work and deep honesty to understand the mind, which is for me the most interesting subject in the world.
• oh… and I should take it easy, because there’s really not much in this world I can predict or control.

and so, with trust in myself and love for the unknown, I open myself to the road once more.

and in writing all this down, actually, the answer to my question has emerged crystal clear.

this journey does not need a new name. it is my Journey Always Waiting.

really, all of it, even the time in between. it feels so natural, I must have always had it coming. but that’s a different conversion…

so, welcome back to my Journey Always Waiting.

now I know where I am. now, I can go…