Mentally, I’m in this strange place of deciding what’s next for my life professionally and I think one of my greatest fears and one with a true chance of becoming a reality, is my fear that I might eventually become a ‘Jack of All Trades, Master of None’. With the attention span of a mature fruit fly and a tendency to avoid stress, I see myself picking different tasks…and leaving them half-way instead of finishing what I’ve started.
This is terrifying.
I need discipline, I need balance, I need clarity. I need a solid plan because right now my future is looking mushy as Cerealac. My mental state for my future has been in this wandering artist/Bohemian chic space, and it has gone on long enough. I need a vision and a solid plan.
This morning, I decided to get some inspiration and rejuvenation from rereading a really inspiring book, Paolo Coelho’s ‘Manuscripts Found in Accra’. It’s a short book, but packed with wisdom. I tell you, this Mr. Coelho should just open a church! I’ll be sitting on the front pew, church hat askew, tambourine in hand, waving white handkerchief and generally constituting a public nuisance. I’m that into his ‘preaching.’
Anyway, this morning I found a really excellent chapter from my read, its on Solitude and I had to share. I knew it was a good chapter because when I got to it in my copy of the book, it had been so heavily highlighted and marked from my previous reading, I justknew it held lyrical gold! Now all I need is to apply all this wisdom.
“Tell us about solitude” said a young woman who had been about to marry the son of one of the richest men in the city but was now obliged to flee [because war was imminent].
And he answered:
Without solitude, Love will not stay long by your side.
Because Love needs to rest as well, so that it can journey through the heavens and reveal itself in other forms.
Without solitude, no plant or animal can survive, no soil can remain productive for any length of time, no child can learn about life, no artist can create, no work can grow and be transformed.
Solitude is not the absence of Love, but its complement.
Solitude is not the absence of company, but the moment when our soul is free to speak to us and help us decide what to do with our life.
Therefore, blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge.
If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself.
And if you do not know yourself, you will begin to fear the void.
But the void does not exist. A vast world lies hidden in our soul, waiting to be discovered. There it is, with all its strength intact, but it is so new and so powerful that we are afraid to acknowledge its existence.
The act of discovering who we are will force us to accept that we can go further than we think. And that frightens us. Best not to take the risk. We can always say: “I didn’t do what I should have done because they wouldn’t let me.”
That feels more comfortable. Safer. And at the same time, it’s tantamount to renouncing your own life.
Woe to those who prefer to spend their lives saying: “I never had any opportunities!”
Because with each day that passes, they will sink deeper into the well of their own limitations, and the time will come when they will lack the strength to climb out and rediscover the bright light shining through the opening above their head.”
And blessed be those who say: “I’m not brave enough.”
Because they know that it is not someone else’s fault. And sooner or later, they will find the necessary faith to confront solitude and its mysteries.
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For those who are not frightened by the solitude that reveals all mysteries, everything will have a different taste.
In solitude, they will discover the love that might otherwise arrive unnoticed. In solitude, they will understand and respect the love that left them.
In solitude, they will be able to decide whether it is worth asking that lost love to come back or if they should simply let it go and set off along a new path.
In solitude, they will learn that saying ‘No’ does not always show a lack of generosity and that saying ‘Yes’ is not always a virtue.
And those who are alone at this moment, need never be frightened by the words of the devil: ‘You’re wasting your time.’
Or by the chief demon’s even more potent words: ‘No one cares about you.’
The Divine Energy is listening to us when we speak to other people, but also when we are still and silent and able to accept solitude as a blessing.
And in that moment, Its light illumines everything around us and helps us to see that we are necessary, and that our presence on Earth makes a huge difference to Its work.
And when we achieve that harmony, we receive more than we asked for.
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For those who feel oppressed by solitude, it’s important to remember that in life’s most significant moments we are always alone.
Take the child emerging from a woman’s womb: it doesn’t matter how many people are present; the final decision to live rests with the child.
Take the artist and his work: in order for his work to be really good, he needs to be still and hear only the language of the angels.
Take all of us, when we find ourselves face-to-face with that Unwanted Visitor, Death: we will be all alone at that most important and most feared moment of our existence.
Just as Love is the divine condition, so solitude is the human condition. And for those who understand the miracle of life, those two states peacefully coexist.
Oh Wendelyn! 