The Crossroads

In the journey of life, there are many crossroads.  There are choices that are to be made, and each direction taken has the potential to make, or break, your life.

My life has been like most other people's life.  I have encountered many crossroads and I have been forced to make a decision, or have simply followed a given direction out of fear of making that decision for myself - and also out of utter laziness and lack of desire to push forth and follow my intuition.

In the world of electronic devices such as the GPS, it is simple to just let given directions drive our lives.  I personally do not turn on the GPS unless I am in the immediate area of where I want to be, or if I happen to be travelling in an unfamiliar location at night.  Instead, I often map my location in advance.  My dad made a very good point about the GPS habit.  He pointed out that it is very easy to get lost with one - as in, not be present to where you are, and how to intuitively get around.  While he did not use presence and intuition in his statements, my dad's stories about clueless bus and taxi drivers who refused to listen to his advice about alternate directions that can  be taken to shorten a trip, or get out of a major traffic jam makes me think in those terms.  My practise has always been to plan alternate routes and know most shortcuts that can be taken when driving.  It drives my mother crazy when I hit the back roads on a journey all of a sudden... hahaha... The irony is that she has always emphasized the importance of knowing the back roads!

This past weekend, I was forced to sit with life staring back at me.  I was sitting on an island on North Tea Lake with no way to escape as I had sent my friends on their way to enjoy and have fun exploring the area on the canoe.  I was in a space of deep inquiry and my energy level at the time did not allow me to mix and mingle. Instead of one crossroad, I encountered several.  These crossroads have followed me back home and I am now writing about it. 

Without having to rehash what life has been like for me leading up to this, I am now faced with some decisions.  The roads I choose to follow each have an emotional attachment to it.  There will always be a cost and an emotional implication to the decisions I make and the direction I follow.  

Right now, I am at the point where I just want to give up the fight.  I want to take the crossroad that will allow me to put up, shut up, and keep the peace in order to avoid conflicts.  The conflicts that I have experienced have had their costs.  There were costs to relationships, as well as to physical and emotional well-being.  Many of the crossroads that have shown up for me offer different options.  It can be so confusing for me to decide which path to take.

The crossroads in my life have brought me to a place where I am now questioning what is real and authentic about my way of being.  I am beginning to suspect that I continue to live my life out as one big lie.  When I say I want to give up the fight, I am saying that I should actually stop all the work that I am doing for myself, and retreat back to where I was when I played it safe.  I am not sure what will happen when I get back to that point, but I am at the point where I am beginning to lose touch with myself as I am right now.  At this point, the costs to me, and to others I relate to will play out if I keep up this lie that I am in right now...

So... Back to the drawing board I go...