Week 3 - Should I take up a writing assignment that I have just been offered?
9 of Wands/Knight of Cups/The Hermit
How many chances can one take? We don’t want to fall on our faces repeatedly, but it happens and that is the process by which we learn. The scars we collect may stay with us like a story, a personal history book, and become part of our identity. But history becomes heavy to carry. I have often envied snakes that can just shed their skins.
I thought humans could not. Letting go is a popular topic these days but so hard to achieve. But some opportunities come to help us shed the past. They look like the ones we got in the past. And trigger our memories. Forgotten wounds become fresh again. And we feel history is repeating itself.
However, according to Dr. Wayne Dyer, letting go of the past is essential because the purpose of the past is to bring us to the present. It wasn’t to break us down, ruin us, hurt us. It was simply to bring us where we are today. A means to get to the present. A step on the road behind us. He encourages people to let go of their personal histories. You can listen to his argument here.
If in the present you are provided with an opportunity that feels like a new chance, a new door, instead of fearing it, be grateful for the road that led you to it. No, there is no guarantee about what lies on the other side. No, you cannot predict what’s to come. Even if your past experiences will convince you, that you know what’s coming, the truth is you don’t. This is a new door. And you are, believe it or not, a new you.
There is worry that you may not have a positive experience. There is still pain from your past experiences. But there is this door that you can choose to open. And whether you know or don’t know what’s on the other side, you can choose how you want to enter it.
But before we do that, let’s take a step back to the moment when this opportunity appeared in front of you. It made your heart flutter, didn’t it? It made you feel like finally, something was moving forward. It gave you excitement and hope. What if this is it? The thing you’ve been waiting for!
And then the mind comes in and begins to question everything that your first felt. It wants to protect you. It wants you to make the right decision. But it makes you lose the positive emotions that you felt when the opportunity arrived.
Joseph Nguyen in his book, Don’t Believe Everything You Think talks about goals and how we can either create goals from a place of desperation or from a place of inspiration. He says that goals made from a place of desperation are things that one needs to do to get somewhere. They are a means to the end. Goals that come from inspiration are not the means to the end. They are the end themselves. For example, if your goal is to take up this assignment so that it brings you money and recognition, then you are creating a goal from a place of desperation. And this will inevitably lead you to worry. What if you don’t get what you were hoping for? Alternatively, if you were to approach this opportunity from a place of inspiration, the goal then becomes something more immediate. Your goal can be to enjoy this assignment or to expand your knowledge. In the present. Not in the future. It is the means and the end.
The key is to go within and ask yourself why you want to step through the door and why you don’t want to. What are your reasons for considering both possibilities? What beliefs are you harboring? What fears are driving you or stalling you? What stories are you telling yourself? And most importantly, how willing are you to leave all this and plunge into the unknown? No one can tell you what is right for you. Except, there is a clue. The flutter you felt when you got the offer, holds a truth. That your heart is yearning for this experience. And sometimes, one simply needs to experience things rather than deny oneself the opportunity. As was mentioned earlier, this moment will soon become the past. It is just a moment on the timeline of your life. Something to take you from one moment to the next.
Now that you know this, what is going to move you? Fear or faith? Look within, and make a choice.
Very inspirational reading esp for one who clings on to the past!❤️❤️❤️😊
Many unasked questions also answered here. Thanks for this post, Parool