When I turned 40, a dear friend who was 12 years my senior, asked me what I knew for certain. I told him that I’d have to get back to him on that. Three months later, we were sitting together again and I brought his question back up and he smiled.
“So what do you know for certain?” he asked again.
My answer: “We’re all in this together, alone, doing the best we can with what we have at any given point in time.”
He smiled a knowing smile.
In 17 years since that question, I’ve remembered and forgotten my answer more times than I care to remember or than I could count.
I’ve forgotten that I am in this life and on this planet with everyone else and yet I have focused on the alone part, because I believed that illusion more powerfully than the “we’re all in this together” aspect. That has allowed me to shrink and stay “safe” — or so I thought.
This week and my participation in this Gandhi Pod has been one of the most blessed experiences in my life! I didn’t know what to expect other than “an experience” and I came in with an open heart and mind.
Over this last week I have been humbled by the delta that I’ve found between where I am today and where I want to be. I’ve gotten — and lived — smaller over the years, shrinking into the shadows, not wanting to bother anyone or be an inconvenience.
I believed that an automatic conflict must take place to go “against the grain”. I don’t hold that as a truth anymore. Love is the way, for others and myself.
In my Pod Profile, I wrote that we’re all in this together. As I write the same line today, I’m blown away by how that simple statement was actually a foreshadowing of my rebirth into the now.
I’m not certain exactly what my future looks like right now — but I do know that it is LOVE.
