Of Forks and Roads

I feel the urge to write, but I haven’t got anything pressing to write about. I’ve been staring at my iBook’s screen for a minute or two waiting for some inspiration to hit me – something profound to light up the page. Alas, nothing. So why then, you may ask, am I writing this? Good question and one that will be the subject of the day. Profundity is just around the corner…

It is not uncommon for me to draw a blank when there is nothing of major consequence going on in my life. Regular readers may say, “Hold on, aren’t you working on a bachelors degree? Didn’t you name this blog in deference to the unusual path the last 25 years has taken you? What about the insights, the revelations and the epiphanies?” All true and exciting still, but the novelty, at least in this moment, has worn off. I am not as amazed as I once was. That can and probably will change, but right now, I feel just a little blah.

It sounds a little bit like I am starting to take my recent good fortune for granted. If there is anything that I have learned from my history of successive boom/bust cycles, it is that complacency is an early harbinger of doom. It is the beginning of a progression that leads to feelings of superiority, entitlement, ingratitude, resentment and finally, total and complete self-destruction. It is a road I’ve been down before and one that I’m bound to take again if I don’t proactively prevent it.

So I start off writing with no idea where it will lead me. All I had was an urge with no inspiration, a desire – perhaps it was discomfort. I very well may have confused this uneasiness with some gut level drive or perhaps it is two sides of the same coin. The point, I guess, is that there are many avenues for this emotional energy to manifest itself, not all are positive or, as I know all too well, constructive.

Writing, for me, is an expenditure of energy. Some would call it emotional or mental energy; others may refer to it as spiritual energy. Call it what you will, I am not concerned with semantics. What I am concerned with is not allowing history to repeat itself and – here is the profound part – just by doing this simple exercise, I have already averted disaster. Right now! I am taking measures that won’t do anything to change this moment (I’ll be in pretty much the same place in five minutes as I am right now), but at the same time it has done everything to change it. There is a fork in the road that I am trying to negotiate. Just past the fork, the path will have changed little but down the road – there may be no turning back.

This technique of preventative maintenance works for me and it has become habit. I did not think or realize that the early symptoms of complacency were a great big red flag. Indeed, it was only because I write every day that I sat down to compose anything. I was not looking for answers; I thought I had it pretty good. And I still do – this is why. If I don’t write I don’t think. There is no way I could have processed this feeling through by sitting around doing nothing because I have nothing to do. Now, even before I have finished, I’m energized, grateful, humble, patient and inspired all over again.

I have heard it said that we can start our day over at anytime. This advice is usually given when one is experiencing a “bad” day. It is a tool that is used to regroup, to hit the reset button and get centered again. It is about perception and how we feel affects our reality. The problem, in my experience, is that once a day is bad, it’s next to impossible to change it midstream. However, if a day is not “bad,” but not “good” either, it can be pushed one way or the other quite easily. Guess which way I’m pushing today?