Or rather, my Tao.
I had a culmination of a lot of different paths that led to one intersection point which is my future path. So this is what I want to reflect on here. Now to find out how to write it in a way that makes sense.
The first thing is a recap of some of the past topics. It feels like I have been reading a lot of books that were suggested to me by other people. I started reading The Wisdom of Yoga based on a coworker’s suggestion and also was listening to The Alchemist. The same person that suggested The Wisdom of Yoga also was interested in reading The Alchemist, so we kind of simultaneously read it even though it wasn’t fully planned out that way. I started having a lot of conversations with this person because we both felt like our lives were in a position to go onto the next journey. This huge project at work was coming to a close, so we were both looking closely at ourselves and what comes next.
Grad school seemed like the direction I wanted to go but I was starting to have my doubts. I started to recognize my lack of work-life balance. There is a quote in The Alchemist that continued to stick with me. In the story, the boy is trying to find his treasure in Egypt. At a certain point, he has the opportunity to go back to being a shepherd or to proceed with trying to get to Egypt. He decides that he can always go back to being a shepherd.
“I can always go back…” This continues to have a profound impact on me. Ever since I began my journey of self-discovery, I have recognized that I grow the most when I do things that are not familiar to me. The concept of a Renaissance man comes to mind. Someone else at work referred to me as a ‘Jack of All Trades’ type. I think I do prefer to be someone that is a master of none but attempts my hand at many different things. In terms of my beliefs, it means I get to interact with more people which excites me.
If I go down this path of school, it just leads to more work. I will always give myself excuses as to why I can’t do things outside of work and I will just continue pushing to be the best I can in what I do. Even though I can say that work has given me so much growth and would continue to do so if I continued to challenge myself, I need to also work on balancing myself out. I know that by working on this other side of myself, it will only cause the best growth everywhere (including career).
I have learned the lessons of hard work. I can always go back to being someone that just dives into his work. If I want to get myself promoted, I hold the keys to that success and I can do it whenever I want/choose to. However, I do not have the lessons learned to push myself out of my comfort zone and to go to spiritual workshops, or go to yoga studios, or to get involved in the community and meet new people.
I keep being told that now is the time to grow my career because once kids come its all over. If it is my path to grow my career later after I do have kids, I will find the way. So far, this has always been the case. Why would I think it would be different later on? I can always go back.
I decided right then and there that grad school was not my path. This coworker also kept mentioning Reiki to me, so I think I’d like to go back into looking at that. Caitlyn already got her level 1 certification for it and I wished that I could have joined in with her at that time.
After I read The Alchemist, I decided that I must have been an alchemist in a past life. I felt so connected to the ideas and I did not understand why. Then I decided to read the Tao Te Ching. The version I read contained some concepts and ideas from the translator. In his notes, he talked about leadership and how the teachings of Taoism impact people who are leaders. Amazingly enough, the author started to talk about alchemy, and then it all clicked for me. All of these conversations I had been having about balancing the yin and the yang within ourselves were the same things as alchemy.
Alchemy is the idea of taking something and turning it into something else. Here is my life example: I have been referred to by multiple people recently as optimistic. I struggle with this perception that is given to me because I know what goes on inside my head and I do not necessarily believe that I am optimistic. At least, not to start out with. I do have the attitude that everything will work out because so far it always has for me and I understand that this idea is optimistic in its nature. Maybe these other people see the results of my alchemy. I think most people see alchemy to be the search to turn lead into gold. It’s not surprising to me that an idea of such profound significance was likely corrupted by silly humans looking for a get rich scheme. Unfortunately with science and perception, a few bad eggs cause the whole thing to become an idea of fantasy.
Alchemy is the secret to living a successful and happy life. It’s what so many books talk about at their core without actually mentioning it. Alchemy is the ability to take negative and make it positive. To take tragedy and make it prosperity.
The best translation that the Tao has in English is the Way or the Path. My Tao has been to understand that I am an alchemist. I also recognized that it is what makes me a leader. I don’t always like to call myself a leader, in fact, I don’t like it much at all. I much prefer to allow other people to be leaders. In work and anything else, I say that I take on leadership just because I feel like I need to, not because I want to. I think it is time I embrace that I have the ability to be a leader. It doesn’t mean that I need to stop following just because I am leading others.
This translation of the Tao Te Ching gave me an idea of a path. I saw myself creating a place where people could come together and talk about philosophy, learn from one another about yoga (or other things similar), suggest books to each other for growing themselves. It could be a place where people come together to do art or a place where speakers come in to talk about personal development. It is the inkling of an idea that is floating in my brain, but it feels right.
This is already a very long post, but I also need to mention that after I had these above thoughts, I received my denial from the grad school program. I know that in my post, I mentioned that I interpreted a sign that told me that I would get in. This would drive skeptics insane that I believe in some sort of predicting the future even after it was not correct. I have never believed that predicting the future is a 100% true thing. If it was, there would be far more believers. Besides, Taoism teaches that the future is always in motion and it may only be possible to speculate on what could happen.
Anyway, regardless of that, I wished to point out that something was wrong. If anything it means that I need to learn a little bit more about reading the signs around me. However, I believe that everything that did happen truly pushed me in the right ways. There was a reason why I interpreted the things the way I did but I may never know exactly what that reason was.
