Brave New Kitty

Another thing about this inner journey is that it doesn’t matter where you end up. Not in the least! It’s the journey itself that matters.

Oh sure, it’s important to set goals for yourself. And ideally, where you end up with those goals will be a more satisfying place than where you started out. But when it’s the inner journey we’re talking about, worrying about the outcome is more often than not an excuse to not make the effort. People say things like What if I do all this and it doesn’t turn out how I want? What if (fill in the blank) isn’t worth it? Such reservations usually have more to do with hesitance and fear than they do with genuine concern that self-discovery might not be all it’s cracked up to be. It is all that and more. But the reasons people balk are real and significant, and discounting them is not helpful to anyone who wants to change.

When a person is mired in habits that she knows aren’t working, she usually has valid reasons for hanging onto them, even if it looks like insanity to everybody else. These habits are the only respite from her anxiety that she knows. They are also usually a person’s primary sense of connection to the world. So to give up these habits is to give up the only way of relating to the world. If you’ve ever watched an addict go back over and over to her addiction in a way that is so obviously self-destructive, what you’re really watching is a person terrified of giving up her comfort zone. From this point of view, can you blame her?

Change is hard. Nobody wants to quit doing what they’re accustomed to. Nobody wants to take a long hard look at themselves. Nobody wants to confront their demons or feel their pain or fix their broken ways of dealing with their emotions. It’s an overwhelming proposition, and that’s putting it mildly.

But don’t let worrying about an outcome stop you from trying. You may decide you’re not ready, or that you have other priorities right now, or that you’d rather deal with the consequences of not changing than take on the hard work of change. But questioning the outcome of the effort is not a reason to refrain in any way, shape, or form. Because embarking on a journey of change can only be a positive. There is not a single downside to self-discovery, so you must learn to ignore the fear telling you that there is.

The truth will set you free. Nowhere is this more true than when it’s the truth about yourself. Once you start down that path, the sense of rightness about it is uplifting, exhilarating, mind-bogglingly wonderful. Like a cave dweller who sees sunlight for the first time, more wonderful and radiant than he could have ever imagined from the vantage point of lifelong darkness. When you first start out, you simply have no inkling of the tremendous possibilities waiting for you. Truth will bring you to places you can’t possibly comprehend at the outset. So the goal you set for yourself in the beginning will most likely be far smaller and lower than where you end up.

But most of all, it doesn’t matter where you end up because it’s the dance that matters. Most people look at life as something with a destination. They think that when they get to X, everything will work out. They get there, and immediately start thinking about Y. Then when they get there, Z is the first thing on their minds. None of these destinations fulfilled them like they thought would happen. This is because it is not the endpoint, but the adventures along the way, that fill the cracks and crevices of our lives and make it meaningful.

Learning to look at life as a dance instead is one of the wisest things you can do. You don’t dance to get to the end, you dance to enjoy the music. Life is a song. It is meant to be sung, danced to, enraptured by. What’s on the other end matters, but not nearly as much as you think it does. And if you focus too much on that, you miss out on the beautiful music playing right now–this very instant!!–that you could be dancing to instead of worrying about the music around the next corner.

Things rarely turn out how we want or expect. Sometimes they turn out worse, sometimes better. In the end, having shown up for the dance is all that really matters. If you do that to the best of your ability, things have a way of working out alright.