“I see a man who has the largest wings in the world but hasn’t tried to use them.”
There are some things that people say to me that I know will stick with me forever. I’ll never forget these words. I’ll never forget them as I read them from someone who knows me incredibly well and who has seen me go through plenty. She has seen me in many different ways, but I’ve never heard words like that before. They made a dent in my life, one that I will never forget.
Tonight is about these wings.
To be completely honest with you tonight, today has been one of the most challenging days I’ve had so far. Challenging doesn’t even begin to describe it actually. That’s a massive falling short of words that could really describe what has been the roller coaster of everything that has gone down today. This is also going to be incredibly hard to describe in a way that really makes sense because it involves a lot of opaque thoughts and ideas that only really exist in crystal clear vision in my mind. What the hell…I’m giving it a shot.
This morning I felt massive, overwhelming, extreme amounts of pressure. If I’m going to be honest with you about all of this, I’d have to tell you that it brought me down to my hands and knees. I haven’t felt pressure like this in such a long time and I didn’t know really what to do with it at first. But oh I felt it – I felt it deeply.
I feel like I’m being pounded by lessons right now. Pounded really is the only word to get close to this feeling. There’s a barrage of lesson-based meteorites barraging the landscape of my life full bore and I am wearing them as if they were in fashion. Time after time, call after call, situation after situation here they come and bang, bang, bang, straight into the side of me. These aren’t small lessons. These are lessons in which I feel like I have always needed to learn and that are forging something positive out of me – while I can’t quite see that yet I can feel it to some extent – and teaching me things that I know I’ve really needed to grasp.
On one hand things are really fantastic, which only adds to a bit of the confusion here. There are many many good things in my life that are bringing me significant amounts of happiness. That’s undeniable. Those things are brilliant.
On the other hand, there is a feeling of something coming – not a bad thing – but of some big coming where I am getting the sense that I am going to be torn out of where I am right now and thrown into something I have absolutely no experience, capacity, or simple understanding of how to deal with the situations that are going to present themselves. I only know who I am…and I have faith that this will be enough – but it’s still a bit nerve-wracking.
Some may call this a place of being in anxiety about the future – I would have to agree. Something that I have spent so much time working on and invested more hours than I can imagine is coming into fruition and to call it a unknown would really be silly at this point. It’s known. It’s understood. It’s only a matter of time until it pops and when it does it’s not going to be a small crackle, it’s going to be a very very loud bang. For me to be in the place I am of understanding what that actually is is thrilling, exciting, a whole boatload of “who knows what’s going to happen” and a whole lot more nerves. I’ve built something that I’ve always dreamed of and there’s some nervousness around “Good lord what if it really happens?”
I’m watching it happen.
But what all of this really comes down to is living a life of what is going on right here and now and not living so much in the future itself. I know I just talked about something right around the bend but it’s hard to explain how I know that this is going to happen. I’ve seen it, I’ve felt it, and it’s running through my veins ready to pour itself out into the world. Like I said, can’t explain how…I just know.
There’s this strange feeling that has been looming in my gut for 3 weeks now because of all of this…all of this that has been going on and it hasn’t been able to settle itself really. At times it relaxes but it comes back up again and I have to go back in and do the work that’s necessary to hear it out. I don’t shy away from that work anymore because I know it’s the “good work” but it can get a bit frustrating at times when you are having to breathe through this all the time.
This feeling…I thought was caused by a few different things but I’ve ended up realizing that this is a feeling of knowing something is right on the horizon and it’s about to reveal itself to me. The scale of this thing intimidates me and calls to me that I’m the one to make it happen. How wonderful is that? It scares the shit out of me…and yet…pulls something deeper within the depths of my heart to go to it.
That explains some anxiety. That explains some excitement. That explains a whole lot of things.
This world of uncertainty, I’m really starting to get a good idea of what that actually means. That means a whole lot more than just leaving the future out of the question. In fact, what I’ve started to realize is I actually have absolutely no control over anything but whatever I’m doing right now in this second…and the more and more I’ve started to see that the more I’m realizing how absolutely clueless I was when I was constantly living in “goals land.” (a name I’ve created for my past way of being)
With a majority of things, I actually have no idea what the hell is going to happen…and from time to time because this realization is so impossibly new it freaks me out. That’s the dead honest truth. This realization has been so powerful, so transformational, and so damn full of learning lessons that it has barraged my life time and time again with lessons that I am being forced to consider because they are good for me.
Life is uncertain.
This is the one thing that I’m really pulling out of all of this. Not like that’s a small lesson. Maybe it may sound like a small realization, but really grasping this is rocking my world. I can’t predict what anyone else is going to do, what is going to happen tomorrow, what people are thinking about, what is going to happen an hour from now. I may have some sort of general idea but the more and more I release from that the more I am getting my socks and shoes knocked off like it was some sort of game.
I’m alive.
Being really alive isn’t always easy. It’s not always a walk in the park where things are going to be full of cake and rainbows. This being alive is a challenge right now. I’m seeing and experiencing things that I’m not used to and being confronted with situations that are challenging me down to my core. I have things in my life that I’ve never had and the tradeoffs for those things are worth it but good heavens can they be thought provoking at times.
Breathe kid.
I’m working on that trust me. Breathing through all of this. Falling into meditation. Slowing it all down. I’m breathing. I’m feeling.
But most of all, these wings that I’ve been growing for years, I know they are ready to fly. I’ve been walking up to that little cliff for quite some time with the intention to dive off and I will when I get to that little spot. This knowing is that same place of being in a place ready to jump. Ready to use those wings.
Those words will never leave my mind. Those words will never leave.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project