There. Did you feel it? That moment when you glimpsed the great change about to take place? Something is approaching. You can see its shape, its shade, but you cannot make out its exact form. Its very indistinctness is frightening. There is a trembling beneath your feet. The thing approaching could be friend or foe. It could arrive bearing roses; it could descend upon you with all the warmth and sweetness of a typhoon.

There is a new road unfurling beneath you. The good news is that at least it won’t be a road you’ve traveled before. “You can never step into the same river twice” (Heraclitus). The current of life is always pushing forward, and there you are . . . someplace entirely new, even if there are certain things about it that look uncomfortably familiar.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind having things a little mapped out. Easier. Completely defined. Or perfect. (And maybe there’s a golden bubble transport, within which I will no longer have to suffer the indignities of cleaning out the cat litter box.) But reality is erratic. Surprising. Elegant. And we will never earn a respite from all of the things in our lives encouraging us to grow, pushing us to make difficult choices or to strengthen our resolve. There is always something demanding more of us—demanding more of our authentic selves. What is this authentic self? I believe it is the part of us that knows our true capabilities. It knows the desires of our heart, and the strength of our spirit—and life is going to keep offering us the opportunity to get it right (even if it just so happens to kill us in the meantime).

So . . . you find yourself at a crossroads, and you make a choice.

The result is not what you intended. (I’ve tried having no intentions. That didn’t work. I discovered little bits of intention and expectation mixed in with my openness without my knowledge, like little bits of raisin stuck in a perfectly good bagel.)

And, if it’s not what you intended, then what do you get?

A greater understanding of yourself.

Every choice brings me closer to knowing my own heart. And every event in life that offers me this opportunity may simply be a means to that end. What will show me, ME?

In this case, what other choices will I make? Perhaps I have learned now at least enough to say that I have absolutely no idea what any new road will bring. I have at least learned enough to say that it could be awful. And there is a chance that this very horror could also turn beautiful. There! I have made a choice, and it appears to be the wrong one! But is it ever? Is that even possible? Can I actually walk down the wrong road? I don’t think so, no matter what it looks like. Not even if at the end of the path there’s a tunnel and a giant spider waiting to stab me in the stomach. Great! An opportunity to be stabbed in the stomach! Now that’s something I never would have picked.

It sounds amusing (and perhaps a bit like bullshit) when I say it like that, because no one likes it when “bad” things happen. You want to make perfect decisions with your eyes wide open and your justifications lined up in neat little rows. You want to feel like you have your facts straight. You are doing the absolute best thing for your future—hell, maybe even for the future of others! You are making wise choices here—ones you will not regret. But it’s all a sort of spell we weave—magic dust we sprinkle over our heads in order to feel better about the things we do because we have no real way of knowing that we are doing the “best” thing for our future. The reason is because we cannot see the end. We cannot see the final act of this play. That one “bad” turn may lead to something “good,” which in turn leads to something “bad” and so on until it becomes what it is: life. It IS. Life happens, and then we get busy sorting it out in our heads.

Given this, how do I feel about making choices that scare me? Or making choices that push me so far outside of my safety zone that I might as well be skipping through a minefield wearing clown shoes?

Ask me again tomorrow, when I’m one step closer to hacking my way through the carnivorous plant life growing along the edges of this . . . oh, wait . . . I mean to say, I feel excited. And today, that’s the truth.

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