Dig.
Dig deep. There you will find the answers you’ve been seeking.
You’re breaking new ground.
The more and more time I spend looking at the path I have taken the more I am able to see its lessons, victories, defeats and missteps. The more I see just how important it is to choose a good place to begin digging and keep at it as time rolls on.
There was one big piece missing for me when I started.
Vision.
As the years have gone on, I am much more aware of where I will head if I travel down a path, but when I began, I just started for the sake of it. I couldn’t see where all of this was headed. I couldn’t see the possibilities that lay before me. All I knew is that I loved to write and that it would probably be a good idea for me to process some of the things that were going on in my life.
But here I stand all these years later with one very important reality resting in my hands…
See as much of the end as you can possibly see that the adventures that may come up along the way.
If you know where you want to go in the end, its a lot easier to stay focused on the path. Who knows what will come up along the way? But what I do know for sure is the time and time again as I have traveled ahead into the unknown distractions and opportunities are infinite in their capacities to distract you from what you really want.
Now, more than ever, I am clear on what I really wish for in my life.
My ambitions, for the most part, lacked the steadfast disciplines that are necessary to bring all things into fruition.
I knew that my ability to work wasn’t something that I had to question. However, it was my ability to put things into day to day practice with precise consistency that caused a period of my life that I call The Big Stall.
I had a lot of questions that I needed to get answered before I could head into the next moments of my life. Those questions, with a big shift in how I was showing up in the world, have since been answered.
There’s another piece to this though.
Every once in a while, I would get stuck in this daydream of wishing I could take the person I am now back to the moments of the past and relive them. There was this little sting of regret that showed up along with the sentence, “Oh if only you knew what you know now.” But the truth is, I had to go through all of those mistakes in order to get to where I am now.
So while I understand that little sting of regret and it puts me in a place of action, it’s also a pretty worthless thing to keep around. I had to go through that to get to this.
The only thing I can do now is apply more vision to the future and bring all of the things I have learned from in the past with me. That way, 5 years from now, I will look back with more of a smile.
I think we have great seasons in life that teach us what we need to learn (if we are willing) through some of the most bizarre and incomprehensible ways. I know for one that I haven’t always enjoyed the lessons as they have arrived, but know somewhere deep down that my job isn’t to question their delivery but just to understand the point of them.
I am being taught, every day, on how to become more and more myself and that’s all that matters.
What stands in front of me are great challenges that will forge me into who I need to become. Many I have seen a long time ago, a lot I have failed at giving a solid effort to…but one thing hasn’t changed, that I am willing to come back to the table every single day with a willingness to try again.
This year is about a relentless spirit that will change who I am.
So no matter the obstacle, challenge, growing-pain or lesson I am willing to head straight into what I need to be doing to have that deep part of my spirit fulfilled.
It’s time.
The dig begins.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project