The Long Road Home

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” ~Steve Jobs


I just finished reading Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo, which my Sherpa loaned me a few weeks ago. Although time permits me to read fewer books than I like, I choose my reading most carefully, with pleasing results.

Although it is a work of fiction, it's factual in its larger truth. God is, but we choose our own paths. Every day, in a thousand ways, we choose good or bad, and those seemingly inconsequential decisions add up to our individual characters.

For example, my getting dragged back to terra firma happened because I let my reaction to what some one said about me (which was untrue) run away with me. Certainly, that was not the first time this has happened. And the resulting cloud of dust obscured my way. And I stumbled. And fell a few more times.

And then, as I hit ground and lay there moaning, a passage of the book reminded me that every day, every moment, we have a choice to go light, or go dark. As those choices to go to the light become easier, we thus begin to walk our long road home.

So I made my choice, and this was easier than the last time. And making that choice put everything back in alignment. But it did have me going back to check on people who put me in this same position a few years ago. One is a savvy (if not cycnical) business woman and the other is a poseur. For them, nothing has changed, for good or ill.

But I find myself grateful to them. Because for whatever hurt they have done to me, the results of their actions have given me a new direction, and my life has been given a new meaning. What struck me then as a grievous mistake has become over time a powerful life lesson that has guided me true the last few years.

To choose to not learn from your mistakes is the only bad choice.

The rest is to follow the light, choose light, and only then can you begin to walk the long road home.