new beginnings….

Here I sit in front of my new laptop….and although I have only been playing around with it for about an hour now, I must say I am highly impressed thus far. Highly impressed. However, I did not come here to blog about my  new laptop…although I probably could…lol…

No…lately I have been thinking a lot about new beginnings in life and what they mean for us as human beings. 

I have a new laptop, I am moving into a new living space in less than a week, and I am going to be doing something new with my hair pretty soon. I am experiencing new depths in my relationships with my family and my loved ones. I am experiencing new positive changes in the workplace. I am embarking upon a course that just may help me focus on the right track since I have a feeling I may already be on it. All of these changes that are occurring, and these are just confined to my singular life, are amazing to me. It makes me stand back and pause to think about what all of these new beginnings mean.

Is something truly beautiful that I could never imagine about to manifest itself in my life? Are all of these new beginnings mere manifestations of the growth that has been occurring all of this time? Or are all of these new beginnings just coincidences? 

While talking with my Mommy about a week ago, I made a statement that has just now flashed across my mental eye. 

“When there is no struggle, it means you are headed in the right direction.”

Looking at that statement, I once again understand its profundity. At the time, I said it because of my reflection upon lessons I have been learning and re-learning over the course of this year. But now looking at it again, I understand another level of it. It is not so much that there is no struggle or rather that there is no hard work involved when you are going in the right direction. In fact, there is a lot of hard work involved. But to not have struggle means to not be at odds with oneself, to feel torn about a decision, about a choice, about a path you are taking. When you feel torn, and not just indecisive, but torn about certain steps you are taking — that is a sign you are headed in the wrong direction. It is when you continue to step forward in the wrong direction that you begin to experience your inner struggle manifest itself all around you. 

However, when you are heading in the right path and you are taking those steps, although you may be nervous, you do not feel uncertain. Your whole being is involved in the decision, involved in that step you are taking. And if your whole being is involved…how can you possibly feel struggle? No matter how others may feel about your step, it will not matter because you were wholly present for your decision, for your choice, for your step. 

All of this is crossing my mind because I see all of these things falling into place in my life in a manner that I have never really fully seen before…or never fully appreciated before. To see paths being cleared right before my very eyes is an amazing feeling…but moreso, it makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, I might just be heading in the right direction.

But now I wonder…what about so many other people who are at odds within themselves? So many other people who do not feel as if they are heading in the right direction at all and instead feel immense struggle throughout life? In re-reading my own post, I realize that it is all good and well to write about my own reflections, lessons, and understandings (at least at this point in my life) — but what about so many people who are still trying to figure out the seemingly ever elusive how????

HOW do people get themselves moving in the right direction? Hell, how do people even realize that they are in fact moving in the wrong direction? And once they figure it out, how do people get motivated enough to counteract the inertia they are feeling to continue moving in the wrong direction? HOW??

Amazing how three letters change the whole focus, huh?