All-In
The latest in Paolo Coelho’s books to change my freaking life.
I’ve felt “one foot in, one foot out” of my life for as long as I can remember.
I’ve always been fueled by the thought of, “if I can just be this way, or just have this job, or just live in this place - then I’ll be able to live”. This principle has guided my every action and every interaction. It’s this deep ambition and relentless goal-setting mentality, that I inherited from my Capricorn/Type-A dad, that has propelled my life forward. It’s taken me from San Diego to college in Orange County, to Ireland, now to San Francisco, and I’ve been feeling it tugging at me again to head back down South. I’ve always been searching for the perfect equation to peace, and have never been able to solve the magic puzzle of being ‘OK’ with my current life situation. But, I think recently, I may have cracked my own case.
I’ve been systematically working through Paolo Coelho’s books again, most recently, a novel called Brida. Paolo met Brida, an Irish witch, on the Road to Santiago in Spain. One night, in a restaurant over dinner, she told him her story and how she came to find her path in magic and spirituality. The tale she recounted that evening became the book that shares her name. I picked up glorious handfuls of wisdom from this story, as with all of Coelho’s books, and so many edges of pages are earmarked. The most important of all of these pages contained this lesson--that even the wisest of us don’t know the meaning of existence and life. These teachers are simply the ones the most trusting of a universal plan.
They are able to accept the fact that they will never know the reasons why, and that being present and following their calling is the best way to live in alignment with this.
It struck me that these kernels of dreams we have inside of us are of the same instinct that drives an albatross to migrate, that gives the panda mama the grace to eventually let her baby go, and that pushes baby turtles to wiggle their little butts to the sea. It just looks different in humans; the wordless intuition that speaks when our minds are silent, the inspiration that almost feels like divine channeling. Animals just do, uninhibited by existential dread, as far as we’re aware. They trust the journey completely and because they don’t stop to question, they get where they need to be. They’re ‘all-in’. Looking at humans, the pull I feel to create is that instinct--I will be living my ‘purpose’ if I write, if I make songs, if I ride my motorcycle. Following these pulls is the best thing I can do to move towards the existence I dream of, as opposed to my old practice of reactively moving to another place, thinking that just being somewhere else will lead to alignment (though, moving to follow a gut pull rather than desperation is still a worthy cause). Go figure.
Now, I’m practicing being ‘all-in’ to my life. I feel like part of a family with the people at the music school I work for, I’ve been so lucky to be taken under the wing of the recording studio I assist at, and I adore the hilly, chilly City of San Francisco. I love my own family, my friends, and my partner, all of whom help me to grow and still have so many lessons to share with me before the next stage of this life for me begins. Why rush on to the next thing when I’ve barely planted both feet? Like another of my soul sisters and fellow searcher Sarah said to me a few weeks ago, “I realized that no matter where I moved, the reasons I left the other place would follow me.” Both feet are firmly planted into our lives now, and looking into 2020, I genuinely have no clue where that’ll lead, but I know what instinct I’ll be following. How rad!
Will report back as to if this feeling lasts, but at 26, I finally feel like I have time. Like I’m on a journey, and of course I can’t see where I’m going. I’m in it.
Another quote found me this morning, from an account somewhere named @raiseheaven. She said, “It can be tempting to live your life like a prequel...once, once, once. Then finally, you’ll begin to live...don’t do this. Inhabit your life completely....the power to manifest is in the fearless owning of who you are, so that you can shape where you’re going.” I can’t wait to tell my Dad that one, so that maybe both restless Lamonds will be able to find some peace. Here’s to not living too far ahead, to relishing the present a little bit more, and letting this new decade co-create with us.
