My rightful joys and miseries

I think that we have come pre-programmed with everything we need to set us off in the right direction, but for some reason, many reasons, we allow others and ourselves — including our “rational” minds –to cloud our vision, to muddy the waters.

I have given far too much power to reason in my life. It has its uses, but now I know that it has little place in the most intimate areas that make a life not only worth living, but making a life the “right” one, the authentic one, for the one who is living it. This path isn’t found through reason, nor from others, no matter how well-meaning. It’s found by looking inward, honestly and bravely. Everything you need is already there.

It’s not that following the authentic path saves us from misfortunes, from tragedies, from sadness and despair; indeed, it might bring us more than our fair share of those, maybe more than we might have encountered on other, more well-trodden paths. But I see now that it’s actually easier to bear all of these knowing that it could be no other way for you, that whatever life has thrown in your path could perhaps have been avoided by taking a different, inauthentic, path, but then the whole time you would have been miserable in a much more painful, destabilizing way, knowing you’re not where you are supposed to be, not suffering the miseries and not enjoying the delights that are rightfully yours. Instead you are experiencing those things that belong to someone other than yourself, and the miseries are more miserable, the joys less joyous.

These days, I feel like I can bear so much more adversity, now that I’m on my rightful path. I think I can finally see some glimpses of the strength that comes from within when you are at peace with yourself, living as you ought to always have been living, naturally and easily.