the key to finding clarity 🔑
Direction, mimetic desire, snow globes, autonomy
Hey friend,
Before we get started: I still have a couple of spots left for the first Soul Searching Adventure of the year in Texas from February 10-13. Please respond to this email if you are interested.
Ok on to the Friday Exhale…
As I'm finishing my annual review and visioning process this week, I'm reminded of the quote: “Direction is more important than speed.”
There is a tendency to treat reflection and goal setting as another to-do. To rush through it.
I think that's better than not doing any at all. Yet, I don't believe we will experience any meaningful shifts in direction with that sort of thinking.
If we want to think from a place of true possibility, we need space. The same goes for a lot more than goal setting.
It can be hard to find our own direction sometimes. To connect with what we truly want in life.
Our innate mimetic desire causes us to imitate what others around us want.
So we often unconsciously create visions and set goals based on what we think we should want.
On top of that our attention is constantly pulled in different directions.
Our minds are like freshly shaken up snow globes.
Our true desires, clarity, and our truth, are always in there.
They are just surrounded by all the other snow flakes. Deadlines to hit at work. Kids and pets that need to be fed. What politician said something crazy on social media today. How are my crypto holdings today?
Clarity and truth is all that remains when we get space from our day to day concerns.
From the hustle and bustle of our lives.
That is where we can ponder life’s biggest questions.
A guy from Oklahoma came on a Soul Searching Adventure this year.
He had spent years feeling uninspired and hating his job, but he felt stuck. He had thought about this over and over for years with no movement and no idea what to do about it.
On the 3rd day of the trip I gave him the exercise of creating a sculpture depicting where he is and where he’s going in the next phase of his life.
I left him out there alone for hours in the mountains.
When I came back he was beaming from head to toe and had a completely different outlook on his life. Within a week he had left that job and within a few more he had found one much more suited to him.
His life changed when he gave himself the space to zoom out.
A a couple more things I want to share
Article series by Charles Eisenstein
This is a fascinating interpretation about the state of the world today.
I believe Charles' voice is one of the most important in the world right now. His central message is that the cure for our problems, if there is one, is to see the divinity in all life. To stop seeing ourselves as separate from. To stop seeing each other as wrong.
Article on learning by Brett Hall
"The truth is this: Anyone can learn anything. It’s just that they don’t want to. In order to learn, you must choose to learn it."
That’s all for this week. Happy New Year!
Michael