I think I knew the moment when it was showing up.
You see, it was like when a candle burns right to the end of the wick. It’s still flickering, but you know it’s going out. You know it’s time to move on.
That was happening for me more and more with traveling. This wonderful path had come to an end the way I was doing it. Doing it on my own didn’t serve me anymore. I had come to my peace. I had learned to enjoy the silence. I learned to enjoy my own company as I did a lot of things on my own. I learned to open up to complete strangers, have conversations on a whim, and smile when our language barriers got in the way.
It’s not that I’m done with traveling.
It’s that I’m done doing it in the way I was doing it.
And so now there’s what’s ahead of me.
That vision I’ve been speaking of. I’m already on my way. I’m paving that path. Now, even more than ever, I’m living.
I wrote this today and it’s pretty relevant towards what’s been happening for me.
I don’t answer to you.
I’m sorry if you think that’s abrasive.
But I answer to myself.
My heart.
My deepest sense of self.
That has always guided me home.
Why?
Because I will not build myself off your compliments or approval.
Nor will I be destroyed by your criticisms.
Don’t get me wrong,
I will always look after you and treat you right.
But I’m my own man.
I trust myself.
What’s funny, is when I look back at posts from years before, I really didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust the decisions I was making or what I really was.
I was so conflicted by stories of the past and allowed them to get in my way that I acted in all sorts of ways that didn’t serve me well at all.
But now, after so much work internally, I actually trust myself.
While I’m not immune to making mistakes, I trust the beat inside. I trust that my moral compass will steer me in the right direction and will allow for me to distinguish between right and wrong. But the biggest thing that has arisen is compassion. Compassion in a complete sense – that it includes myself as well as others.
My biggest workings have been on fear this year.
Yesterday on the plane, I heard this amazing quote watching a movie. The woman said something to the effect of we never get rid of our demons we just choose to live above them.
That struck me.
I think I actually smiled in that moment and then paused the movie.
It made me think of this idea of choice.
Every day, and how we show up in that day, is a choice.
Thing is, those choices determine the rest of our future. This has been called many things (I just resonate with the idea of karma).
So the seeds we plant today become the garden we live in tomorrow.
So the choices I’m making now are about living in a future with even more happiness, joy, freedom and love.
That’s what makes my heart full. That’s what brings the best out in me.
So I have to live that today. And I am. Decision by decision. Mistake by mistake. Choice by choice.
Oh and the garden is beautiful.
Evan Sanders