Some years are about the answers, and some years are about the questions; that’s something I remember reading a while ago.
As it often happens with deep ideas, we don’t always get their meaning till we’re ready. Only after we have lived and tussled with life that we’re open and humbled enough to let their wisdom sink in to our deeper self.
The last few years have definitely been years of questions for me; most of them terrible and ego generated, from dark spaces of fear rather than from genuine, open curiosity. And guess what happens when you ask terrible questions? You get terrible, confusing, dead-end answers, if you get any at all.
When we ask terrible questions, we’re asking the universe to get its act together so we may experience fewer bumps in the road of life. Why is this happening to me? Why can’t this be easier? Why won’t that person act/do/not do things in ways I want? Trust me, I’ve asked them all, in untold variations.
But that’s okay. Only when we keep asking terrible questions do we experience the frustration of crappy, unhelpful answers, or that dreaded indifference from whatever higher power we believe in. If we look closer, it is in fact our invitation to pay real attention.
This is when you realize that your questions are terrible, and you need better ones. You decide there’s nothing to lose. You begin to look at things as they are. You begin to wonder what you can do with things, as they are, right now. Maybe you take one tiny step. Or make a tiny change in perspective. This mindset shift is key; it is everything.
Slowly, much too slowly, your questions get better. What is the situation here, based on reality, not my wishes? What can I do on my end? What can I stop doing to improve things? You take tiny actions. That’s a great start.
It’s important not to lose heart at this point, because this shift can take weeks, or if you’re particularly stubborn and ego-tangled, years.
Eventually the answers begin to reveal themselves, usually nothing like you expected nor as fast as you craved. But they do. These answers are not superficial, but hard-earned; they swirl and simmer and transform into a deep knowing, yet not exempt from deep examination and if need be, discarding as your self evolves. In time you discover that it was never about having all the answers.
It’s not about asking there be no bumps in the road, it’s about becoming conscious and reinforcing yourself so the bumps don’t throw you off.
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