Getting onto the Right Path

One of my favorite stories comes from Love, Medicine and Miracles by Dr. Bernie Seigal. A young man wanted to become a violinist. His parents said no, become a lawyer. He went to law school and started practicing law. He then developed what was diagnosed as terminal cancer. Thinking he was going to die, he got a job playing violin for an orchestra. Years later, he was still alive because he realized he was on the wrong path. He had to live his life, not the life of his parents.

Knowing when to walk away is wisdom, being able to do so is courage.

Isn’t it amazing that cancer is what gave him courage enough to walk away?  He demonstrated how true the maxim is that every cloud has a silver lining.  Can you think of examples when you went through a dark time only to find at the end that it gave you what you had always dreamed and wanted?

Your body knows when you are not living your authentic life, and you will receive a wake-up call.

• It is important, that you listen.  That you look within and examine your life.
• It is vital, that you create the courage to make the change.
• It is critical, that you realize that just because you are walking down the right path, doesn’t mean there won’t be obstacles.
• Your need of courage includes being courageous enough to face the fact that you will still make mistakes, experience disappointments and despair.

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.  Everything we see is perspective, not the truth” – Marcus Aurelius

This is where the ability to both look around you, and within yourself becomes important. It doesn’t mean that you are on the wrong path just because something goes wrong. It just means that you need to grow more, to be able to continue the journey.

In every journey something in your life will become complete.  It will have played out its purpose.  That road map will no longer lead you in the right direction.  You need to wake up to follow a new direction and not just blindly continue down a road that no longer leads you in the right direction.

Every year roads change.  New maps are made.  If your car has a GPS unit it will need to become updated.  The road that used to go through that small town, now bypasses it.  Internally your GPS has updated itself and you need to follow a new path.

U-Turns don’t take you all the way back.  They just take you back far enough that you can take the turn you missed.  Life’s road twists and turns.  There are no two directions that are ever the same.  So, when you complete a U-turn, it is just like taking a right-hand turn.

You can’t truly go backwards, although it seems like it some days.  Trying to, is very disappointing, as you can’t recreate what we left behind.  You changed and so did everyone else.

Don’t allow yourself to become the boulder blocking the path. This is what happens when you try to go backwards.

• You block our own path.
• You recreate similar patterns of self-destruction.

If you do, that is when you know that it is time to listen to the heart.  Your heart and soul are like the magnetic needle on the compass. Always go to “true north” and you will be on the right path.

I have always maintained that U-turns are part of every journey to some place that I don’t know. I expect them, I laugh when they happen. U-Turns can be really interesting.

What I have learned in my life is that every single experience has something important in it that I needed to learn. I may only understand later, why that piece of knowledge was required.

I have been in the mortgage industry for over 40 years. So I have lived through good and bad cycles in the financial industry. Years ago I had a good job, but the owner of another company kept calling me to come and work for him. Finally after months of getting his phone calls, I gave notice and went to work for him. This job would end up being a U-turn for me.

He had hired a free lance writer to create a manual for the mortgage brokers he worked with, and she seemed unable to finish the project, so as part of my job I took that project to completion.

Then two weeks later I was laid off, when the interest rates hiked up and his business slowed down. I really yelled at myself, because I felt I had made a wrong decision in taking that job.  I felt I should have stayed where I was, safe in  my comfort zone.

We ended up having to move out of state in order for me to find work. But what happened next, was really interesting.

The Savings and Loan I went to work for needed manuals written for their servicing department, and because I had that experience I got the job of being both an underwriter and a trainer. I created several training programs for them, as well as the servicing manual.

Then I got a second part time job teaching at South Seattle Community College for an adult education class for loan processors and loan officers. I ended up creating new manuals for this position too, because their manuals were so bad. Both of these jobs would not have been available to me, if I hadn’t taken that earlier job and got the experience of creating a manual.

“Move on.  It’s just a chapter in your life.  Don’t close the book, just turn the page for a new chapter”  – Unknown

So you will fall down. You may even get lost. U-Turns are a given. But as long as you take out that compass, listen to your heart, and keep creating the courage in your soul, you will be on the right path. As long as you tune into true north, you can take that step into the unknown, knowing that this is the right path.