"Is This All There Is?"

This question was posed today by a friend who, many years into a successful business career, was contemplating the path she thought she would take and the one she actually did. 


I can identify. 


As a young person - that is, until I graduated college - the idea that I would enter the business world never occurred to me.  But then I did, and for a time, I think I wanted to believe it was just a diversion, that eventually I would return to my passions of psychology, social issues, women's issues, even art. I wanted to believe I could make a living and make a difference, that I was just getting some real life experience while I figured out my next steps. 


Fast forward nearly twenty years. 


My entire career thus far has been in business. I've had many interesting opportunities and a reasonable amount of success. I care for the people I work with, I receive good pay and good benefits, and my team does work that makes me proud.  


These are all concrete, valid things. 


Sitting atop my lily pad, the same one I've been occupying for nearly two decades, these things sparkle and glint in the sun. They reflect back to me the fruits of my labor and the promise of a bright tomorrow if I just stick it out, work hard, perform well. 


I have followed these dangling carrots for a long time. 


The truth is, I have stayed this course for nearly twenty years in large part because I've been afraid. Afraid because I didn't know what came next, afraid that maybe nothing would. Afraid that after spending so much time and energy working to fit this mold, it had finally set and could not be undone. Afraid that choosing another path meant risking rejection, failure, financial insecurity. Afraid to follow my heart, and deep down, more afraid of no longer having a sense of what it really wants. 


Allowing my eyes to wander to the surface of the water and then beneath it, I catch glimpses of other things hovering close to the murky bottom, partially obscured and dreamlike. Yet even through the cloudy depths, I recognize them. These are things I used to know in my bones, things I used to love and want, things that had nothing to do with "security" and everything to do with the feeling that comes with living on the edge "of terror and ecstasy", as a friend would say.


I could be laid off tomorrow. Or hit by a bus. Any number of unforeseen circumstances could befall me that instantaneously would turn my world as I know it upside down. And then I would be forced to make some choices. Or worse, choices might be made for me. 


I've been living as though I will cross those bridges if they come to me, but in the meantime, I've put them off with questions and rationalizations such as, Why rock the boat? Why not just have a hobby, take a class, make time to dabble in the soul-satiating stuff, be satisfied with a "fix" every now and then?   


My eye is drawn back toward the bottom of the lagoon by something shifting in the silt. It looks nearly close enough to touch. 


I have deferred exhuming and exploring my heart's deepest desires because doing so might put me in the uncomfortable position of wanting to pursue them. And that would mean a face-off with all that fear.


"Is this all there is?"


Yes, I want to say. Yes, this is all there is. And I/you/we can decide what this is: this moment, this one life that we've been given, to live as fully as we can in honor of our creator and our highest selves. 


If I don't like this this, I can change it: by giving more or less to the job, or listening for the things that call out to us from the watery depths of our subconscious, or walking through the fear of trying something new... but goshdarnit, yes.


This is all there is, and it is as expansive or as confining, as fertile or as barren, as glorious or as mundane as I would have it be.