Sometimes what we need is a dream

You know, there are big questions and little questions. Like, what to have for dinner? That’s a little one. And, what career should I spend the rest of my life doing? That’s a big one. I know, just because you start out on a journey doesn’t necessarily mean that your path won’t fork, but I had a time in my life when which direction to take left me feeling more than a little stuck.

You see I had just started in one direction when another was placed before me. Do I finish the old or start with the new? There’s no easy answer as I talked myself in and out of twisted pros and cons.

Then I had a dream:

I’m standing upon a tower constructed of bamboo when I notice an old Chinese man staggering down a dusty road with his walking stick. Feeble as he first appears, he carries with him a wise cunning. He approaches my structure and vigorously begins to shake it until it comes crashing to the ground, me along with it. As I lie in the dust a smirk comes to his eye delivering me a moment of fear as I realize more is still to come. He walks over to me and places a large wide shallow bowl of green powdered herbs before me. Quickly he reaches into the powder and throws the herbs into my face.

With this I’m suddenly awoken from the dream and clearly know what to do next.

My path is acupuncture. Its ideas, theories and practices will send my worldview crashing to the ground and deliver out of the dust a new paradigm.

And that it did.

Sometimes we just can’t reason the answer out.

Sometimes what we need is a dream.

What if you Brought all of Yourself to Dinner?

There’s always someone better than us when we put our individual components under the microscope.

There’s better climbers than me, lots better, a lot better slackliners, most gymnasts would find my level of competence ridiculous, most mountain bikers would see me coming in a few hours later, some acupuncturist understanding of neuroscience leaves me with my mouth open, there’s better writers whose structure is always right, better dancers who’s moves don’t raise a smirk and those that have lived wilder lives than mine.

Get too up-close and focused on the fine details and you can end up feeling a little less.

But then:

You can pan on out and take another look as you combine it all altogether: I know no other acupuncturist, speaker, writer, climber, slackliner, mushroom drinker, herb eater (medicinal that is), wild at hearter, inner worker, childhood adventurer, tree climbing, passion freaking, life designer, like myself, anywhere, and I’m only getting started. That combination is just too hard to find, I don’t even know how I found it, and it’s certainly not replicable. It’s just not a franchise model.

When you put all your stuff together, all the accumulated bits that have been gathered over your life, what you get is gold. In isolation it’s a note but together it’s a song. Gather it up over a lifetime and you have your self a tune, one that has never before been played.

Your gift is not your secluded parts; it’s all of you that you bring. Suddenly you’ve got yourself something remarkable, a freight train that just won’t stop.

Now what’s left is to get on with the stuff that matters, the stuff that means something, to you. Now you get to bring all of you to the table.