What Do I Want To Do, What Do I Want To Be?

I think one of the hardest things to do is to really know, with a deep certainty, what it is you want to be and do. At first, you may not agree. You might think that you know exactly what you want to do and to be. You may be one of the lucky few who actually do have a handle on those things, but most of us, when we get right down to it, don’t know.

As I look at my life, I think I want certain things. I regularly go through the exercise of writing them down. I did it just this morning. After I finished writing them all down, I went back over them and looked at them more closely. What I discovered was that two of them were the same thing, just said in a different way. When I looked hard at these two things, it made me realize that there was something beneath them that was the real issue.

I thought I knew what I wanted, but I really didn’t.

Getting to the root of what we want and who we want to be can be a long drawn out process, or it can be something that hits us like a lightening bolt. It can be so easy to fool ourselves or take the easy way out. Changing our lives, who and what we are, is most often uncomfortable. It takes some real strength of character to be that honest with ourselves.

I read a book once by Terry Brooks called “The Sword of Shannara”. If you haven’t read it, I will spoil it for you. The power of the sword is that it causes the owner to see themselves in brutal honesty. Most people can’t handle it. The best way to defeat the enemy is to let them see themselves for who they are. It destroys them.

When we look at ourselves with this sort of honesty, it can be hard to take. Our ego, that part of us that protects us, starts making excuses.

“My personality can’t be that way. I wasn’t raised that way and I’m not sure that is the right way for me to go anyway!”

The point of the ego is to protect you. The problem is that often times it will make excuses because changing would mean pain and the ego doesn’t what you to have pain. We have to put the ego on notice that no matter what sort of pain might come, we desire the change. If we can make it through that process, we can then start to analyze the real root of the problem. Are we unsuccessful because we are afraid? Maybe we think we don’t really deserve success.

What do you want? What do you want to be? I suggest you sit down and write all the things you can think of that you want. When done, go over the list. Analyze each thing on the list. What is it really saying. What is the feeling, the desire, behind the entry? Can you dig down into it until you come to the real truth? Invite your ego to relax and let you face the truth. Then make the commitment to change.