Tuesday, April 5, 2011

D is for Destiny

When you come across a novel with a title like Escaping Destiny, it's fairly safe to assume that the author spends a good deal of time thinking about fate, destiny, and the nature of our journey through life.

WARNING: Doing so has a tendency to drive you slightly mad.

In the novel, one of the main characters is responsible for navigating the days ahead and keeping those in his care safe from harm.  Overwhelmed by the choices before him, Kai finds himself questioning everything - his choices; his path; whether he has any say at all or if his destiny is already chiseled in stone.
Kai closed his eyes, raising his face to the sky, the weight of the road before him weighing heavily on his spirit.  "So what do I do?"
He felt the woman he loved turn to face him, kneeling on the earth before him.  When he opened his eyes he found her smiling at him, ready to meet his gaze.
"You follow your heart," she reminded him, the corners of her mouth turned up in a promise that everything would turn out alright.  "You do what you believe is right and choose the path where you stay true to yourself.  If you do that," she swore, "whatever the outcome of the days ahead, you will look back and realize that you have no regrets."
That simple advice, "You follow your heart," is so key to everything I do.  Things don't always turn out the way I hope they will.  Sometimes it seems as if following your heart is the sign that points you down the road hidden in shadows and debris while the other choice is paved, well lit... and wrong.  As the passage above reminds us, when you follow your heart, "... whatever the outcome of the days ahead, you will look back and realize that you have no regrets."

There's a saying in my world:  "Your heart is your map and your intuition your compass.  Follow them."  Every other choice before us can ultimately be traced back to another person's words.  It doesn't matter if they're speaking from a book, a pulpit, a televised program, or from where they stand right next to you.  Even when we seek advice, it's useful to place those words inside your heart and see if they match the map you hold.

We aren't always able to see our heart map clearly.  That's where our intuition comes in.  If we slow down and allow ourselves to feel the situation, if we look at our map and imagine ourselves taking different routes across it, each one feels different.  That's our intuition - the compass we use to navigate the map of our heart.

The path we find may not be a simple choice - or an easy road to walk down.  But if we follow our heart, if we stay true to ourselves, "whatever the outcome of the days ahead, you will look back and realize you have no regrets."

14 comments:

  1. Beautiful. You are so right, when we follow our heart, no matter where the journey takes us, we can look back and have no regrets. The journey of our heart gives us the lessons we need and helps us become who we are meant to be. :)

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  2. Your words induced thoughts from a slightly different angle.
    This is one of those very simple ideas that ends up being more difficult to hold to than I expected.
    I continue hoping that with practice, over time, the voice of intuition will become easier to identify from the other voices we encounter daily.
    I also look forward to a time when intuition gains validity in a world of logical thinkers.

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  3. Recently I had to make a difficult decision based almost completely on intuition. I have been questioning myself and wondering if I was being too emotional or harsh. After reading your D word, a peace came over me, you are right, I will not have regrets. Thank you so much!

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  4. I find that the challenge for me has been to quiet my MIND in that process! I am very linear and intellectual, and learning to "get out of my head" has been a painful process on occasion - but very worthwhile. Thank you. :)

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  5. Thank you. It can be a hard compass to follow, but I'm learning with each step that it's well worth the extra effort to listen closely and trust in its guidance. :)

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  6. I usually try to clear my mind before I start, once I have a topic. It makes it easier to "get out" as Mountain said and be more objective. Thanks for another great blog! :)<3

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  7. This is lovely. And right. My favorite line from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,"The Truth comes knocking at your door and you tell, 'Go away, I'm waiting for the Truth.'"
    Nicely done.

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  8. It' great advice to live life with no regrets. The older I get, the more I appreciate it. You hit the nail "Dead on" with this one! Julie

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  9. Lovely passage from the book :-) Have taken a few 'wrong' turns in the past, which have turned out to be right. Being true to yourself is the only way to go and knowing, in your heart, that you've done so can temper any number of regrets!
    Thanks for the thought-provoking post.
    All best
    Karla

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  10. The excerpt is an excellent example of a strong voice while applying tight writing techniques.

    The message of your post is heart warming.
    Nancy
    N. R. Williams, The Treasures of Carmelidrium.

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  11. Great post! I have had a recent experience that basically would be an affirmation of this idea. One path was well paved, a good (head) idea and a great opportunity for growth for my job, the other path, while not necessarily the best for my current career, was a good (heart) idea and felt "right" for me.

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  12. Wonderful advice, and very elegently put.

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  13. Thank you all for you wonderful comments! I'm trying to catch and follow each new person as a way of saying, "Thank you."

    Our culture seems quick to dismiss using your heart and intuition to navigate the road before you. After all, there are no statistics to validate the approach. What I've found is that, while it doesn't always make sense in the moment, when you look back upon the choice from a place farther down the road, it becomes clear why the choice was the correct one for you to make. I don't know about you, but it makes me wonder what else we're overlooking by following numbers instead of what we know is right but can't always explain.

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  14. Very nice.....thank you for sharing whats "in your head and heart" =)

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