“Why don’t you just commit suicide?”
This was the first question that psychologist (and Holocaust survivor), Viktor Frankl, would ask his troubled patients.
With his insightful opener, Frankl would discover the remedy to their existential crises in one fell swoop. Quite simply, it was genius.
Post-divorce, my answer would have been the kids – not that I’m the suicide type anyway. What I mean by that, is that suicide takes a great deal of courage. But I digress. And I am not interested in touting the upside of suicide anyway.
So then I played the game to see what my answer would have been if I hadn’t have had the kids. Maybe then it would be to travel and experience things. Maybe it was to sing. Maybe to write.
But when I didn’t think I was thinking, the question kept gnawing at me,
And then, it came: the call. I knew (again) what I was here to do.
I say “again”, because, on some level, I have known before. Arguably, I have always known. And now I was clearer.
Rather than the neti-neti (not this, not that) way of approaching things, or having a stick beating at my heels, I had a real carrot I wanted to eat.
It felt strange.
It felt strange to have a goal (again).
(No, not growing my hair).
“Once you make a decision, the [whole] universe conspires to make it happen.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
One step at a time. One breath at a time. One day at a time.
Baby steps to move closer to my goal - this thing that is calling me and seems to have taken on a life of its own.
It reminds me of when I wanted to have a baby. It was this sort of feeling. You know you want it, you know it’s going to happen, you know it’s going to change your life and yet, you have no idea at all. You have no idea of what is that you don’t know.
So this is the choice I make - the only choice - but I am choosing. We can always choose not to answer the call when it comes. But it will come again. And again. And again. Until we accept the gauntlet that has been thrown down.
The quest begins…
--
