Archives for September 2011

I refuse to spend all my time doing something I’m not totally passionate about.

Bold statement, I know. One of those easier-said-than-done things. Ah, but there’s a gap in that expression. The continuum is not merely “say” or “do”. Not at all. It’s actually much simpler than that.

Let me explain.

You’ve probably heard this quote by Goethe:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

I love this couplet – it is language dressed to the nines, glittering diamonds draping the dots and dashes of otherwise everyday words making them beautiful.

But these words, to me, are missing something. They’re the destination, not the journey. They suggest one must know the ultimate end as though it were a painting – visualized, sketched and shaped, then painstakingly created with deliberate brushstrokes until the last drop of paint is in place and the picture is revealed.

But life doesn’t work that way.

It can’t work that way.

We just can’t know.

Enter W.H. Murray.

Mr. Murray lived centuries after Goethe and spent three years as a prisoner of war, during which time he wrote the first draft of his first book – which was subsequently destroyed by the Gestapo – on toilet paper. His was a decidedly less poetic life, though not short on boldness.

One of Murray’s books contains the following passage, often written in the form of a poem and misattributed to Goethe:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

Murray’s original work is clear: “I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets,” he wrote at the end of that paragraph, and then quoted the more well-known genius/power/magic couplet, forever linking them and causing his words to be credited to another.

In any case, I think what he’s basically saying is this:

That’s what I believe, too. Sometimes we just have to place our faith in the universe (or God or Allah or whatever you believe in) and take that leap, knowing that each of us has within us what it takes to get where we want to be. It doesn’t even really matter if we don’t know exactly where that is.

Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down.

I have leaped before, into the unknown, knowing nothing except where I wanted not to be. And I’ve found what Murray suggests to be true: Upon committing to something, things start to happen. Sometimes the path goes sideways for a bit, or even backwards, but if you stick with it you will end up where you’re supposed to be. It might not be where you wanted to end up, mind you, but it is where you’re supposed to be. I believe that to be true.

That’s why I have, again, taken the leap. I have decided to be bold and have committed to something big – something that will ultimately require change, not only for me but for my family. I did it in my usual, dramatic way (which is another post entirely) but in doing so I have allowed providence to move, and I’m already seeing the results of that in ways I never could have predicted.

I did it because I don’t want to be stuck in a life I know isn’t right.

I don’t know what the end state is, what the dream looks like, but I have begun it anyway. I have invited genius, power, and magic into my life by taking a leap.

I am building my wings as I go, and once they start to take shape I will share with you the journey they will carry me on. I don’t know what that journey is right now.

I just know what it isn’t.

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Prompt: “I refuse to spend all of my time…”