What is it you really wanted to do in this life, but didn’t? Those dreams, or compulsions; the things that scream for completion; why didn’t you do them? I am speaking of the dreams that others are too quick to dismiss; the dreams too important for us to dismiss. But why did you dismiss them?
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I do not usually ask these kind of questions. But I wanted to ask this for those that may need it. Ask this question and see what arises.
Some may not have a need for this question. However, if you need to ask it, you will not like the answer, but it may be necessary for you.
This is very interesting. I have had a career dream for many years. It seems to arise again about every 10 years. Each time, there was some new push to act. Sometimes, some movement towards it was made. But never the shift.
Recently, it came round again. But now I am not the person who had this dream. And now I see it differently. I see various objections but more, I see that I never did act fully towards it. Others I know have. Why was this?
I see now I was enamored of the means and was good at it. But this is not the same as what it is to be something. There has to be a vision to express for the means to have meaning. But I was not inspired to use the means to express another’s dream. Indeed, I didn’t even like the kind of people who often pursued this career. It is very curious.
It has taken me a long time to see what suits the temperament better.
It’s interesting but I let all that go a long time ago. We take different paths willing or not and it became, for me, somewhat counter productive to waste too much time wondering what might have been if I’d done this or that or made different choices.
There are many things I may wish I had or become, but I would have to give up some part of my life today and that’s not something I want to do.
To Davidya and Amysue,
You both see clearly how to approach these things.
It is interesting…I am certain I have had many experiences, and possibly many regrets, but I can remember very little of that now. There are memories, of course, but it becomes difficult to know what actually happened versus what I may have imagined.
Far too much time is wasted in regret. One can easily miss the beauty of life.
I usually believe in the trope that memory is illusion and often a trap. One of the dangers in my own life is the temptation to get lost in memory or nostalgia.
I work hard to stay right here and to experience right now because the past is not only unchangeable it’s often not even a true reflection of what was (if that makes any sense).
Be well and give my best to Akiko (I’m sorry I missed her this past summer).
I never had dreams or aspirations. As Pink Floyd might say I was “blown on the steel breeze” of my belief in my victim hood. No regrets, no recriminations. What happened had to happen; or at least believing so makes me cope better. What would I do with blame once I pinned it down? Besides, if looked at correctly, my self destructive past is just as worthy an instructor as any university.
So here I am now, in a community college at age 58, starting a new (and scary) phase of my life. Not having good study habits makes it challenging. Witness the fact that I should be studying how to interpret an EKG strip right now instead of typing this! (laughs).
If pressed to name one thing though, it would be not to have walked away from my experience of stillness some 38 years ago. But back then there was little information in the West to call upon to help me digest and assimilate what had happened. Acceptance. That is all that is left me; acceptance. And I try to do it with grace but often fail. Perhaps there is grace in just the trying.
Amysue,
Memory, or that action of thought, can certainly be a trap, but that is no fault of memory. There is that interpreter, making the decisions and selecting the should and should not, or the should be and the should not be. I wonder how many can just sit with the whole thing, and follow it to the very end?
There seems to be a problem in seeing those memories without the stories we pile on top of them.
I’ll pass along the message to Akiko. I am planning to visit the USA next year sometime, and she’ll probably come along. If so, we’ll be sure to stop by your neighborhood.
Say hi to everyone for us.
Eric,
Ah, that is right. What has already happened is the greatest teaching. And no one else can give it to you.
Walking away from stillness is all you could have done, but you clearly see that. One problem for many (all?) of the searchers is the idea of one needing more information in order to get it. And in the physical world, that certainly works. More info, more practice, more experience can lead to excellence in something. But we are speaking of this world within, a place only you are intimately familiar with, and no amount of getting can bring clarity. If anything, it is a subtle removal that simplifies the whole thing.
Good luck with your studies.
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