On Starting

I am all too familiar with the feeling of being lost. It is a feeling that many of us dread and take for granted, but one that nonetheless guides us back to the right path if we allow it to. Still, regardless of the gratitude we may feel afterwards, it is still as annoying as waiting for google maps to recalculate while you’re waiting for it at an intersection. The vivid image of both palms facing the roof with shoulders shrug and a desperate look on our faces comes to mind. I imagine everyone can recall a time when they were in that situation, as you pull over to the side and turn your hazard lights on while other drivers pass you while giving you the finger. The embarrassment, the shame.

In our lives we experience this in a multitude of different ways. Whether it is spiritual, emotional, interpersonally, psychological or career wise. The void that suddenly becomes exposed by the light of being lost interferes with who we are in a way that it’s too uncomfortable to even describe. While many of us choose to simply stop at the light and wait for google maps to reconfigure our route, some of us choose to take one of the turns presented in front of us with the hopes of either centering our location ourselves or giving the navigation app the time it needs without the pressure (even if it means we’ll be even more lost by the time we find our directions). Some of us choose to drive to a nearby area, where we can park the car and wait without the pressure of making guesses while operating a vehicle.

There is no wrong way to deal with being lost, there is just dealing with it. Exploring it, asking it questions, looking inward, taking chances and always holding onto a tense sense of hope that at any given moment you might just figure out not only where you are, but where you are going. This is what beginnings feel like; a bowl full of unsureness, guesses, step-by-step, moment-by-moment…all of the things that most of us in the modernized world aren’t very good at.

There is nothing to say to alleviate the process of the beginning for you other than take an action, any action. Stop at the light and hold off traffic with intention, drive around without directions with serenity, pull over to wait out for the directions with a hopeful patience. Regardless of what it is that you are starting, remember to let it be anywhere… but let it be somewhere.

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