Pushing away the unexpected good

Along our hero’s journey, our story is constantly in flux.

New opportunities will flow to us from many unexpected directions, and our great joy along the way is the discovery, the turning of the unknown into the known.

This is about as human as people get. It’s no wonder the monomyth is the basic narrative structure found in books and film.

Chapelle delivers and inspiring monologue about the sheer unexpectedness of this journey in his most recent movie role:

You float out at sea, and one day you find a port say, I’m gonna stay here a few days. Few days become a few years. Then you forgot where you’re going in the first place. But you realize you don’t really give a shit about where you were going, because you like where you’re at.

Dave’s tale reminds me a lot of my own journey. Perhaps you can relate to this story.

Imagine extracting yourself from a life in which, by all outward measures, you were flourishing, flipping it upside down, leaving it all behind, and then precariously plunging into the abyss with no idea of where it might lead.

That’s basically what happened to me over the period of three years. Moving cities, changing careers, getting married, the whole thing was expensive, exhilarating and exhausting.

But the thing is, the hardest part about the whole adventure wasn’t the journey itself, but the acceptance that the journey was the perfect one for me.

That it was enough. That I was enough. That my life didn’t have to be loaded down with the heaviness of feeling so unworthy to be meaningful.

Talk about a skill nobody teaches you. How to relax and enjoy the view on those strange detours in your road?

Most people are not naturally good at that. Being present is too much work. Too much surrender. Too much faith. We’d rather be hung up on the memory of our imperfect past, or obsessed with the vision of our idealized future.

Anything to avoid staring the unexpected square in the face.

Of course, when we think back to the most memorable movies and books, the art that moved us to tears and made us feel something we didn’t know we had inside, odds are, it’s because of the surprise.

The turning of the unknown unto the known. The detour the hero’s story took that we didn’t see coming.

Perhaps it’s time for you to walk out beyond the light of the campfire and take the next step that will lead you on a new journey.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you pushing away unexpected good simply because you do not feel worthy of it?