The Abandoned Bridge
What is your dream? Dreams become our true north.
What do you want to do with your life? Put more simply, what is your dream? For many of us, somewhere between childhood and adulthood we traded in our pink tutus and Star Wars figures for a laptop and SUV. We stopped dreaming and settled into autopilot going from one day to the next without stopping to ask ourselves if this … this thing we are doing right now… if this day-to-day routine… if this is what we really want for our lives. If you’ve been reading my blog, then you’ve seen over the past few weeks we’ve been talking about becoming a raving fan of our own lives. Last week we talked about rumbling with the universe so we can define our values.
Today, we are going to go a little more existential. “What?!?” You ask. “Values weren’t existential enough?!?” As we work toward becoming raving fans of our lives, we need to become laser focused on our goals, so let’s start with an easier question: What is it that you want? I don’t mean a material good or an event, but instead:
What do you want out of life?
Journal that for a while, and when you think you have nothing left to write, ask yourself again:
The Abandoned Bridge. For the first time in 10 years hiking this path, I noticed the decrepit bridge off in the distance.
What do you really want out of life?
Then journal again everything that comes to mind. Let it pour from your heart, through your pen, and on to the paper, no matter how far-fetched. When you think you have nothing left on the topic, ask yourself again:
What do you really, really want out of life?
I would challenge you to do this as many times as you need, until you truly have nothing left to write. I’d also challenge you to do this no less than three times.
The first day of my silent retreat a few months ago, the Spiritual Director I was working with challenged me to journal these three questions. At first, I thought these questions would not be relevant to me because I clearly knew what I wanted since I had just left a job I had been passionate about with a team I loved to start my own executive coaching and advising firm. In fact, I was laser focused. But what started as a fairly superficial answer with the first iteration of the question, grew deeper with each repetition.
I remember walking the nature paths of the retreat center deeply pondering the question. As I hiked the paths with which I was very familiar, for the first time I noticed a fork that was worn and unused that veered off to the right. Much to my surprise, I saw a bridge that was decrepit and clearly unsafe about 100-yards off the main path.
As I pondered that bridge, I recalled the last stanza of Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken.” Lest you think I am some sort of savant, we are allowed to have our phones on the retreat, so I looked up the rest of the poem. As I read the poem in its entirety, three things struck me that I’d never noticed before:
There is an air of regret, almost sadness, in the first stanza when he says he is sorry that he cannot take both paths.
There is hesitation as he stands for a long time looking down the path as far as he can see. It appears he is pondering deeply his choices and he does not just jump in.
There is a bit of wistfulness in the last stanza, or maybe its curiosity as to what would have happened if he had taken the other path, although, clearly he believes he made the right choice. I see this in the “sigh” with which he tells this ages hence.
This led me to some deep discovery in my personal answer to what I want out of life as I pondered the tradeoffs we each make. In life, there often are a number of reasonable paths we can take. Sometimes, we can choose one path while being aware of the inherent sorrow of being only one person and unable to pursue all paths. As interesting as it might be to try them all, the choice to focus my energy on one path allows me to hone my skills in a way that fulfills my individual purpose and live my dream. Somehow, understanding this truth helped me become more comfortable with some choices I had made as well as others I was about to make so that I could fully embrace the path before me.
As I reached the retreat center after my long contemplative hike, a brief spring shower had blown flower petals from the trees onto the path in front of me serving as a symbolic confirmation of my journey forward. As I have launched my company, I have been grateful for my dream and for knowing what I truly want. This has served as a true north for me.
Please stay tuned for next week when we talk about the BIG QUESTION I had to ponder next. The life-altering-thought-provoking-cover-your-ears-if-you-aren’t-ready-you-can’t-handle-the-truth type of question that rocks your world. After all, that was only the first day of my silent retreat. For now, though, I’ll leave you pondering our current question:
What do you really, really want out of life?
Path to retreat center
The path to the retreat center was covered with flower petals after a brief spring shower.
