Decide on a path

I feel I am at a crossroads. I want to decide on a path, but I'm unsure where to start.

Your first step is to find out who you are. You're not going to get anywhere until you know who you are. Self-knowledge is the start. What makes you passionate, and feel alive? What are the things that you love and that fulfill you? Once you have figured that out, you'll be able to begin to outline what your path might look like, ideally.

There are many ways to learn about who you are, but it takes a fair amount of self-exploring. You need to go deep into yourself, if you've never done that before. Go past all the labels and expectations people and society puts on us -- go deeper than that. Journaling is one way people have used that can be very effective as a means to learn about oneself. It’s often very surprising what comes out when we journal, honestly and uninhibitedly. Meditation is an excellent means of exploring one’s inner realms. If needed, professional counseling might be called for. But that’s the fundamental, essential step -- discover what you are, at your core. What are the fires that burn in you? Get clear on that, and shaping your energies to a specific path will be the next step. But nothing can go forward until you first learn who you are.

Here’s a good exercise to start you off: What did you most love doing when you were a kid?

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Peace,

Dave Roel.

Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.

- Pema Chodron

Things to keep in mind

Failure is always going to happen in our efforts. Instead of resisting it, yield to it and allow it, and bounce back from it. Fail upward.

As we progress, we will need resources. Some people try to manage and control the resources they need themselves. This can be done to a certain degree, but it's less efficient than pulling the resources as needed from the existing world.

Take risks. Safety is important, but taking risks is how you learn and grow.

Keep both micro and macro in mind. The system is important as well as the individual objects in it.

A map is best used as an orientation device.

Find others who are smarter than you.

Everyone has something you don't know.

Be ready and willing to adjust what you're doing upon new information, or for a new situation.

The bottom line is always results. Results are what matter.

There are no prizes for following the rules.

Don't confuse education for learning.

Here's a cartoon. ☺



Peace,

Dave Roel.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

- Joseph Addison

Career

In this society, we need money to live. Presumably, if you're reading this, you know this, and that's why you're in school — to lay the foundation for your eventual career. Few of us would want to wait tables for our career. So career and finances have to be considered as one of our critically important areas of life to pay attention to.

Given that we all have to work, and that we'll be devoting a large part of our lives to our work, it would be good if we were working at something we enjoy. How many people have you known who endlessly complain about their job? Or who really hate what they do? It's a terrible waste of our life energy to spend so much of it doing something we dislike. Better to have a career that we find fulfilling and satisfying.

We all have a dream job. Imagine doing something so exciting that you leap out of bed every day, eager to get started. Something that's so compelling to you that you would do it for free, if you were already independently wealthy. That would be an ideal standard we should aspire to.

There may be those who tell us that our dreams are unrealistic, that we must be practical, and work at a stable, reliable job. If you're wondering whether or not you should pursue a dream, ask yourself one question: How long are you going to be dead? Pursuing a dream is no guarantee of success, but better the sting of trying and failing than the regret of never having tried.

Do something you love, love the thing you do, and manage life and finances so that they fit one another. (We'll talk about balance in blogs to come.) Attending school is an excellent beginning on our path to a fulfilling career. ☺

Peace,

Dave Roel.

Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.

- Bruce Lee