World in upheaval? Nothing certain? Unsure what the future holds? The built-in tendency across species is to hold back, hide, or wait and see. As you’ve heard many times, this is usually the wrong strategy. If you are feeling stuck and not sure what to do next:
Start where you are and move. Your starting point will be the situation you are in right now. Do not wait for another situation to show up, because it won’t. There will never be another right one, because now is the right one. When you are finished using this staring point, you will arrive at the next starting point. Then, you will use that one.
If you are needing certainty about where to walk, that is, you already know the path, then you only can go where you have already been. Just start out with small actions in the direction that your heart is trending toward. What feels right? Where are all the signs pointing?
The best way will be revealed to you as you are moving. Last month I was at a crossroads on the Camino Portugues and I was unsure of where to go next. Late afternoon, nobody around. I started out in a random direction, and within a few minutes a yellow arrow (Camino directional reference) appeared on a wall. The universe showed up and gave a sign. It always does.
“If you are 100% certain of the outcome of an action, what do you learn from taking that action? Not a thing. If you do not expose yourself to risk, you cannot possibly learn anything; if you risk nothing you learn nothing.” Gifford Pinchot, Intrepreneuring
2. Start Now. Some people look, but don’t see. Some listen, but don’t hear. Many know, but don’t do. If you know it, do it. How often have you had a really good idea and later found that other people had ‘stolen’ it? The difference between your idea, and the idea that made it to market, is only one thing: action. Somebody else took the idea that was available to everyone, and moved forward for a long enough period until it worked.
When the Italian film director Frederico Fellini was asked where he got his ideas for films, he replied, “The film already exists, it is a matter of waiting for it to show up and bring it to reality.”
Before taking action, if you have intention, wish, or thought, your action is already half complete. When you take action on your thought, it just serves to complete it, or to give it form.
Quantum Mechanics predicts that it is already done, you just need to “polish it off.” Your thoughts crystallize the already existing matter in the universe.
Whatever you dream or wish to do, consider it already enroute. Just take action, any action, just keep moving in the direction of your dream.
“Life becomes real at the point of action.” Plato
3. The Five Year Test
Consider the cost of not doing. Five years from now, as you reach out from the other side and greet yourself coming through the door, will you be proud of what you have done? Will you be able to shake your hand, pat yourself on the back and tell yourself that you did your very best? Or will you regret the missed opportunities, the things you did not do, the people to whom you did not reach out in love? Do it now.
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