This year I've embarked on a remarkably unremarkable journey. At least that's what it feels like from the inside. I have set off in a 24' Motor Home and am spending my year working online from all diffrent parts of the country. I normaly call New England home, so the first step in the journey was to run screaming from the cold winter down to Florida, where I have now spent 2 months in the sun, walking trails by the canal, spending some time with The Mouse, and generally soaking up Florida. In the next few weeks I'll be heading north through the heart land and stopping into a few places for long overdue visits.
The thing is, writing it here, it sounds special, even to me. Yet, here in the middle of it, it feels dull. It's not the amazing adventure I'd made it out to be in my head. I'm not out fighting off bears or diving into deep all night chats with people over amazing local cuisine. I think a lot of life is really like this. No matter how much crazyness and adventure your life has in it, going through things we tend to almost instantly adjust to them as "normal". My life of sparkling canal water and cresting dolphins is status quo. Tell that to anyone back home who is still waiting for the soil to thaw and they will shoot me.
In many ways I feel like this is the trapping of the human mind. It has in its vast set of powers, the ability to make anything bearable, anything normal, and as I have said for several years, the most dangerous place to be is a comfortable one. When we are comfortable, there is no reason to grow, no reason to change, and even if your ideals are much higher than your current state of being, there is no stress there to create that change. I believe that in many ways, the mind is just a muscle, it can grow and change, but like a muscle, you need to work it out, to cause some sort of breakage in the fibers of it's structure for it to need to grow.
So this experience and this philosophy stand some what at logger heads. It offers me the question, whither hence? Where do I go from here? How do I challenge my mind to grow if it possesses a nearly limitless capability to both find and encourage a state of normalcy in even the strangest most complicated situations? I think for me this is about habit and positioning. I have a great ability to find comfort in all situations, my mind seems primed for it. With that, I seem to be able to reach a platue with anything quickly and my brain starts screaming at me "See, we did some, isn't that great? Isn't that enough?" but my heart wants more. My heart and my ideals want more from myself, more fitness, more success, more serving. So I will stand on my platues for a moment, enjoy the views and then slog onwards. I'm going to spend this year putting myself in those uncomfortable situations that will help forge me into the person I want to be.
Right now, I know I want to get out and meet people, learn how I can help those around me, serve my fellow man and leave a legacy of at least one life better because of my presence here on earth. Yet inspite of that deeply held beliefe, that need in my soul, I have been unfriendly, shy and at some moments down right standoffish on this trip. So here in the middle of forging a new body and honing my mind, I also want to open my self up to those around me, to work on putting that kind of stress on my mind till it is no longer a place of effort, but a natural comfort. I will put myself in positions of mental and social strain. I want to abuse the minds power to find status quo while being aware that it is happening. This I think is how we use our natural abilities to reach our unnatural feeling goals.
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