I’ve been holding a question in my mind for the past few years that up until yesterday has largely remain unanswered.
It’s not that there weren’t glimpses of the way to head. There were. In fact, there were many stepping stones that illuminated in front of me that gave me a sense of what the entire picture looked like. But never was it a fully complete picture. Never was it the combination of what I needed to do and also what I needed to let go of.
Then, in a flash, it was like the fog lifted.
It didn’t feel like a lot of work that needed to be done. It didn’t feel like it was going to be an excruciating path to travel. I just felt at peace. I felt like the way that had been shown was the way I had been traveling all along I just didn’t really know it.
Maybe the lesson here is that I was on the path, I just really needed to believe in that.
As I’ve wandered throughout the forest for the past two months, there’s been a sweet silence that has fallen upon my ears. No distractions. Space…enough space to learn to let go of the things that I needed to let go of. Peace. I’ve taken it upon myself to use this time to hold the question of “What do I do next?” gently in my hands and not force any answers. During this time, I also came into direct contact with some realities that I had been denying for a while now.
I realized, that without a shadow of a doubt, there were certain parts of my story and certain habits that I had that I really needed to step away from.
And so I have. I won’t say that the transition has been seamless because it hasn’t. I’ve had moments where I have fallen back into old patterns and then had to recommit over and over again to making the right choice with the day that was in front of me.
There are rarely moments where we engage in quantum leaps of change.
Rather, we hold these ideas in our minds of what we want to do and how we would like to change for the better and we are confronted by all of the old grooved ways of thinking that still afflict us. It takes the roll-up-your-sleeves type of work to really make long-lasting changes in your life.
If I go back and look at every since day of the past 7 years of writing, I see that clear as day. Sometimes it takes a lot longer than you wanted it to. But the silver lining in all of that is that with all that exposure to time and effort, you really understand why something means so much to you.
There are also moments when you have that clarity fly right into your mind that you wish you had known what you just found out so many years earlier.
But none of that serves you. Let that go. The point is you know it now. Of course looking back you wish you could have started something 10 years earlier because of all the possibilities. But truths don’t always hit you when you want them to. They hit you when you need them to.
These really large transitions aren’t ending with this clarity.
There’s still more to make. Big moves. New communities. Starting to really focus my attention on what has been shown to me for the next 365 days. But none of this feels stressful. This feels like it has been meant for me all along.
Me being here at 28 thanks the completely lost, directionless, hopeless kid in me at 21 who had the resilience to say “this can’t be it…there’s more for me” for starting all of this. Without that, I wouldn’t have become anything close to who I am today. I am who I am becomes I made that decision 7 years ago.
So me, sitting here at 28, is making another decision.
To believe.
To believe more strongly than I ever have before…and to put myself in the hands of my faith…knowing I will always be taken care of and will be shown the way to go.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project