Resetting Oneself and Destiny
Fate is a really strange thing. Even if you don't believe in it.
That night, I decided to I wanted to go on a road trip. I got in my car the next morning, checked the oil and water, filled up my tank and drove from San Diego to Taos, New Mexico.
I drove the entire day, slept only a few minutes in rest stops and kept going. I felt the rest stops were more for my car than for me. Spent the entire night driving listening to my iTunes. I was driven, pun intended, to get to Taos sooner than later. When I arrived at Taos, the following afternoon, my friend said I was crazy.
Driven to achieve something holds no weight on its own. Fill your tank with passion, and now you’re going places!
Throughout my life, I’ve hit the reset button a number of times. In my earlier life, I did not have a choice. I was driven by my parents like most of us. We are under their control and that’s, for most of us, how growing up is.
As I got older, I was given advice by several “adults” on how to form a strategy for life, and build a career.
I sincerely believed I had to change myself each time I wanted to change the direction I was heading. That life was like a map and you had to choose a path and follow that path no matter what. Stay on course, ignore the interruptions, and never give up. I was told that if I followed the recipe, I would be rich and successful—that was the reward.
The reward is an illusion.
There are things that happen to us that throw a wrench in the middle of our game board and all the pieces go flying into the air and land in places where you can’t even find them again. What the hell, then?
Fate is a really strange thing.
It basically leads us to believe that we are preprogrammed somehow. Ah, but life is not so simple. However, there are countless people who buy a lotto ticket and win. It changes their life. Forget that most blow it. Forget most of us only plan for things that we think could happen but never plan for the things we know would be a fat chance to happen.
I’ve planned for things that I believed there was no chance in the world would happen and reacted accordingly. Saved my life. I’ve also planned for things that I believed would happen because I had set the course on that path and, naturally, I would get there. And guess what? In the end, I was unprepared for what happened after I got there. Damn, I can’t plan for everything.
As I got older, life got more confusing. I felt like I was on a plank in the middle of the ocean, at times. Hoping not to be eaten by sharks, or to be knocked off by a wave and lose the plank. How could I find my footing again?
Seems as if many times in my life, I have spent years learning how things happen and how they don’t. They never have anything to do with “why” things happen or not, though.
There is some element of predictability…like the weather when you step outside your house, or a car. But that’s not so comforting when you’re trying to make long-term plans and need a definite plan.
Over the last six or so years, I’ve come to learn one thing is certain. No matter what happens, I’m stuck in the middle of it with only three choices. Every minute of every day I have three choices. I stay where I am and let the world move me where ever it takes me. I move toward a planned direction. Or I move in the opposite direction of the plan.
I’ve tested all three. The result is usually the same. I end up feeling hopeless and then something comes my way that drives hope right through me and lifts me up. Or nothing meaningful seems to happen.
I am beginning to believe that we spend our life trying to figure out which direction we need to go to get where we want to go. But life is not a map. Paths are mostly an illusion. The person telling you to move down this path because it worked for them cannot even fully comprehend how it worked for them.
We all have a wrench thrown on our game board at some point. We all cross random people, circumstances, moments and experiences that simply change our direction—even when we don’t recognize we’re now heading in the opposite direction.
We also have a wrench thrown at us that changes our direction in a way that brings us to where we learned something awesome, or come across opportunities we only dreamed of.
When I made that hasty decision to drive to Taos, I checked the oil and water and filled my tank. It was a stick shift Honda Civic with a lot of mileage.
I learned the desert is the most boring journey for me. But I got to see the suspension bridge where a scene from Natural Born Killers was filmed. Hung out in the snow and visited a ski resort in Angel Fire. Walked through “earth ships,” off grid desert houses. Enjoyed the best salsa ever, made with “enchanted” peppers. Then I drove the 900 or so miles back home.
Taking that crazy unplanned trip did not change my life. I didn’t come across a great opportunity of any kind. I didn’t expect anything from it. Just to prove to myself I could and experience it.
I’ve had to hit the reset button in my life a number of times. Each time, I’ve had to make a willing decision to change my career, my life, the course of where I may have thought I was heading.
But now that I am here, I’ve begun to understand best that perhaps it comes down to building ourselves. Stories don’t weigh much. We gather stories from our own experiences, some from other people’s experiences and stories, we learn from both. It’s not about the length of a path or the direction we travel on our journey.
I am realizing it’s about the person we become. And that’s how we maneuver ourselves regardless of where we happen to be.
Our only strategy should be to be the best person we can be. The person who wins the lotto may feel like the luckiest person in the world but they come to regret the burden of having so much more to lose than they did before they won. Setting goals and career paths are fine. Understanding they are an illusion helps us get past them.
No matter what you believe your fate is, it’s only when you are in the thick of a moment doing your thing when you feel what fate really is. You are suddenly a warrior. No matter what direction you go, you are the person you know you have become. Everything that happened before brought you here. You know who you are, you realize you can do more than you you think you can.
Any wrench that falls does little damage. You’ve gone beyond needing a game board. The game has become a part of you. You are the game. It’s your play, not another’s path you follow.
You know who you are. You have found your place in the vast universe of doubts and wonders. You don’t need a brand new car or an airplane to get to where you want to go. You realize you’ll always find your way.
Everything that’s shaped who you are is based on the stories. The story of who you are. The story of who you’ve become. To know what you’ll do if and when…that’s powerful.
You may have not believed 20 years ago that you could be a filmmaker. Sure, it may have been out of reach. How could you have known you’d have a smartphone with a powerful camera?
When I was in college studying to be a paralegal, I didn’t see myself working on film sets, or making videos professionally. Certainly, I would not have thought after launching the International Mobile Film Festival that I would host my own podcast.
I am sure that if you look back and tell yourself the stories of your life, you’ll find stories that could inspire you. Perhaps even stories that can inspire your future. Maybe, who knows, maybe you are destined to make a movie with your phone!
© 2024. All rights reserved.