Even though I've only been here for 3 months and I still have another 10 months to go I feel compelled to start planning my next move. I've actually been like this since I arrived in Vietnam. Why can't I simply relax and enjoy the time that I have here and really live in the present moment instead of trying to figure out what's happening next? I have so many ideas floating around in my head as to what I could possibly do. For the first time in my life I finally feel free. Not to sound trite, but life has so much to offer! I could do anything.
My favorite quote from Sex in the City is, "Why do we keep should-ing all over ourselves?" It's such a great question. Why do we think that life is supposed to follow a series of "shoulds" and "should nots"? My concept of how things "should" be has been radically challenged since I've been here. Why am I planning on going to grad school next year? Do I feel like it's something I should do? Why am I only staying in Vietnam for one year? Is it because I feel as if I shouldn't stay any longer? Is it possible to just move on to another country and continue to teach? Am I obligated to come home? Who am I obligated to? I know that I have to come home by July 4th of next year to attend my cousin Ryan's wedding, but who said that I can't just come back? Who says that I can't just move onto another country? I love being abroad. I love my job, the people I work with and my students, so why not continue until I can ultimately justify to myself that it's time to go home? Granted, I've only been here for 3 months so perhaps 10 months from now I'll be aching to come home, so who knows. Exactly. Who knows?
Only building upon the idea of obligation, responsibility and what I feel I should or must do as opposed to what really want to do I am going to throw in this quote. I know he's going to hate me for putting this in here, but in a recent letter from Mr. Schultz he wrote:
If someone gave you a luscious, juicy peach, and gave none to anyone else, you might feel some guilt, because they didn't have it and you did.
The question is, why did you get the peach handed to you?
Because you asked for it, and were on the look out for it, it came to you. No one else you know is asking for and looking for what you have managed to experience through AmeriCorps, and your other travels.
You sound as if, expanding on the metaphor above, you can't have any of the peach, unless you divide up around everyone around you, and maybe, just to be seen as good, keep only the pit for yourself.
Even that might be alright if you moved where you could plant the seed and grow a tree for your self.
I recently read this advice article on intuition vs. motivation and I found it to be quite helpful and enlightening. A man wrote in to the advice columnist at Salon.com, Cary Tennis, about how he is incapable of making a decision in his life. He wants to learn how to be able to follow intuition in order to help make these decisions instead of relying on his rationale each and every time. Perhaps he believed that there is more truth to listening to our intuition rather than using devices such as say....a pros and cons list?? Here is an excerpt from Cary Tennis' response:
You think you don't know what you want but you do. You know what you want. You have reasons for not wanting to want it but you want it.
You may find that none of your choices appeal to you. It may be that you want none of them. That would explain why it is hard to choose. We want what we want even if we think we should not want it.
Perhaps you want to be a minister or a forest ranger. Perhaps you want to do sculpture. So let us clear the field and ask, what do you really want? You want an ice cream bar? You want a bathing beauty? You want a dog? What does this mean? Does it mean that at rock bottom our desires are somewhat crazy?
Yes. It also means that different people experience their inner life through different modes. Some hear voices, some see images, some hear sounds, some think abstractly.
Try this too: Visualize a time in your past when you were happy. Were you sharing, were you winning, were you alone, were you in a crowd, were you talking, were you working, were you perfecting, were you building, were you walking, were you reading, were you driving, were you swimming, were you smoking, were you eating, were you studying?
Also think of "bad" decisions you made. When we cannot see what our intuition is, it is helpful to look at things we did "in spite of ourselves." We find ourselves in situations in spite of ourselves. And we ask: Why?
Because by making "bad" decisions we are often meeting needs that we do not admit we have. For instance, you may think you want to be a lawyer and yet have made many "bad" decisions that now stand in the way of your becoming a lawyer. The truth may be that you do not want to be a lawyer. It might be the sensible thing to be a lawyer but that is different. So look at ways you have avoided doing what you think you should be doing. It may not mean that you are confused. It may mean that you really don't want to do the things you think you want to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment