The Me I Don’t Yet Know

You long for something more, something different.
You long for what you don’t yet have and don’t yet know.

So you begin seeking.
Seems like an obvious next step...
Go get ‘em, tiger. Manifest your destiny. Wild blue yonder and all that. 

And so, subtly and without knowing it, the trap is laid.
The trap of chasing something you don’t know. 

How could you know? ‘Knowing’ is experience. This is still only ‘thinking’.
And so the mistake is quietly made of confusing ‘thinking’ for ‘knowing’…
‘idea’ for ‘experience’.

And though with good intentions you try to arrive somewhere truly new–
putting your best foot forward–
you instead find yourself cycling through the same patterns,
revisiting the same scenarios,
ending at the same conclusions.

‘This looks & feels familiar’ you say suspiciously.
‘I’ve already been here!’ you exclaim confused.
Where is ‘not here’? Where is the me I don’t yet know?

The more you seek, the more the seeking.
The more you seek, the more elusive the finding.

‘That’s not how it’s supposed to work!’ you say in discouraged frustration.
But surely giving up isn’t the answer either...
that’s apathy, complacency, inertia.
You ain’t falling for that again. 

You think back...
’when in the past did I stumble upon something truly new,
something spontaneous and fresh and unexpected?’

And then it hits you:
'when I was present and available,
simply for the sake of the experience,
without truly knowing–or needing to know–where it would take me.'

Effort is a Chinese finger trap.
Effort is a shadow, an echo, a facsimile of real availability,
of a real encounter with the uncontrived you. 

So why not give up the pretension that you know what ‘more’ or ‘better’ actually is anyway.

Risk staying at the trembling edge of your own precious heart,
softened with the reverent stillness of happening upon an unexpected animal in the holy wild.

To your deep delight and surprise,
you will discover that life has many more love stories it has not yet told you.

© 2022 Justin Sarno & HeartPath Enterprises
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