My Soul's Travel Diary, Year 37

(Note: Since beginning my blog, I've started reading over past journals, letters, stories, and so on. This is something I wrote in late 2007. I believe it was meant to be an introduction to a book that I wanted to write.)

I expected more. I’m not really sure how to elaborate on that statement exactly. All I can really say for sure is that I expected more. From the time I can remember I’ve always believed there was more out there. More answers. More responsibility. More purpose. More for me to do, live, see, experience, learn... just more.

I realize now that this was a perspective all of my own making. While we all experience life and death, the way we experience it depends on who we are and how we perceive things. It never once occurred to me in the first 37 years of my life that what I saw and heard and understood to be true might not actually be the same for the guy next to me. The experiences I chose – that I choose – to lock into my memory aren’t the same as those of others who’ve shared those experiences with me. We each attach meaning – or not – to experiences, to things, or to people for our own reasons.

For those of us who’ve had those moments where we’ve stepped outside our own worlds only to realize, acknowledge, and accept that each and every other person in the world is living in a different world – one of their own making – well, we’ve been given a gift. Holding on to that gift, however, isn’t as easy as one would expect. Lessons are often learned and then shelved. Realizations and epiphanies are experienced and then soon eclipsed by the vagaries of day to day living. How do we hold on to these important lessons? How do we expand our spiritual selves and grow into the magnificent energy we’re expected to be when we can’t remember the lessons learned today when we wake up tomorrow?

What does life expect from us? Do we owe the universe something for our existence – for our experiences? Why do I have all of these thoughts with nowhere to put them and no one to share them with who will actually understand or, more likely, no one to share them with who will actually want to hear them? I think we all go on living from day to day with the exact same issues. We all want the same thing, but we can’t all identify it for what it is - the need to know why. Why are we here and what is our purpose in living this life?

I’m beginning to think that we don’t have defined purposes. At least, not in the sense that we understand purposes – like goals or specific actions or what have you. I think maybe what we need to face is that we just are. That in itself is our purpose. We are each meant to live whatever life we were assigned and we’re meant to do it with conviction ensuring that we reap every bit of knowledge and experience we can from that specific life. If that’s true, then we fulfil our purpose here just by waking up every morning, going about living our lives, and learning from the relationships we kindle.

I used to think that love was the purpose of life. I believed that love was everything and that everything in this world – all the lessons, trials, tribulations, experiences and so on – could all be traced back to the theme of love. Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t. I don’t really know. Heck, I don’t think any of us really know anything for sure, but that doesn’t mean we should stop formulating hypotheses. One thing that I think I do know for sure is that love, or more precisely, relationships, are the means by which we learn our lessons and grow spiritually. Whether we agree on a religion or not, I think we can all agree that we’re pushed forward by our souls – or our life force or energy – that thing that makes each of us uniquely us. I don’t really care what you call it, but I’m going to call it soul.

My soul has encountered many relationships and had plenty of experiences. Along with all of these, I’ve learned plenty of lessons and grown spiritually. But, I’m not done. In fact, I don’t think we’re ever actually done. I think that each of us is at our own stage and that we all can go on improving and growing and learning and evolving. This might actually explain why I don’t have a competitive nature. I don’t believe that we’re meant to be in competition with one another. I believe that we’re meant to move each other forward either through positive happy interactions or through negative not-so-happy interactions. Either way, we’re here to help each other grow and the only progress we need to check - the only scorecard we need to keep - is our own.

It’s hard – life is, I mean. For some of us it's harder than it is for others. I know I’ve often wondered why others have easier or financially richer lives than I do. But, then, I also have to wonder why there are others who have significantly harder, poorer, and in many cases, more torturous lives than I could ever imagine. Again, the thing I need to remember – the thing we need to remember – is that we all have our own scorecard to keep. I can’t control, nor do I want to control what someone else’s fate might be. The only fate I need to be concerned with is my own. As I finish saying this I realize that this statement could be interpreted another way so let me be clear: my fate is my own and I am responsible for me, my actions, my attitude, my growth, and so forth, AND, at the same time, I can still be of assistance to my neighbours. I can be of assistance. I can care. I can help. What I can’t do is manage, run, or be responsible for my neighbour’s fate. That is theirs to decide as mine is for me.

I guess this brings me around to today. What am I doing here? What lessons have I learned? How much growth have I undergone? What stories and experiences do I have that are worth noting in my soul’s journal? Why should my soul continue on this earthly journey? What path should I be taking? Where do I direct my compass? These are the questions that have plagued me for most of my life – even as a child – and I believe that I’ve found some of the answers I was seeking. That of course needs to be followed with a caveat: With every answer come more questions and more seeking.

I’m not sure when my journey on Earth will end. I’m not actually sure that this is the only lifetime I’ve spent here. In fact, I think that I’m definitely one of those people who believe that my soul has lived and walked this Earth before in earlier times. Each time I return, I come with new lessons to learn and new experiences to seek out and add to my soul’s scorecard.

Scorecard might be the wrong word because it implies a competitive keeping score sort of feel, but that’s not it at all. It’s more like a history or a map with a history – something that documents where we started, where we’ve been, and where we have left to go. I guess it could be seen as a travel diary. Yes, that’s more like it. A travel diary – filled with dates, places, names, anecdotes, letters, maps, pictures, ideas, notes, and so on.

So what is in my travel diary? Considering that I change with every passing day, I can’t say that what I believe to be true today is what I’ll believe to be true ten years from today. For today, this is my story as I see it, as I’ve experienced it, and as I interpret it to be right now at this moment in my life. After future lessons are learned and more growth has occurred I am absolutely certain that some, many, maybe even all of my interpretations may change in some way. I think that’s the whole point though, isn’t it? Life is all about change. Nothing stays the same: the birth to death circle of life proves that undeniably. Like the rest of nature, we are constantly changing too – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually - whether we recognize it or not.