a moment of clarity
Have you ever been going along, minding your own business, when something suddenly hits you and changes the way you look at your entire life? I’m not talking about an accident or sudden misfortune, but a shift in perspective that causes what seems like total chaos to re-order itself into something completely different. I had such an experience this morning, and my life will never be the same.
For many years I’ve struggled with the idea of what I should do with my life. I’ve known for some time that I’m smart enough to do pretty much anything I want. What I was missing was the knowledge of what I wanted to do. So I drifted. Right now I write internet software for a living. But honestly, that wasn’t my first choice of a job - it was the path of least resistance that got me out of a bad place. Lately, it hasn’t been enough.
I have somewhat decided what I do want to work with - I want to work with plants again. You see, all those years ago, when I first started college, I wanted to be a landscape architect. But after a bit, I did something I now consider quite level-headed and at the same time, quite foolish. I gave up that dream because of money - money I didn’t have to attend the school I needed to attend to become a landscape architect. So I ultimately moved on to something else, not realizing what it would cost me later on in life.
I’m not saying that I’m going to go back to school and get a degree in landscape architecture - I think that ship might have already sailed. But there’s a lot more to working with plants than just that. Just because I gave that dream up doesn’t mean I have to quit dreaming. I’ll be honest with you, and with myself. I don’t know what I’m going to do with plants yet that will let me move on from where I am now. My moment of clarity was an inspiration, it was the one percent. The other ninety nine percent is still to come - bringing that inspiration to fruition. There’s a lot of thinking and hard work between me and my ultimate goal, whatever I decide that is. But now I have something that I didn’t have before - a general direction in which to move.
I must act on what has happened today. Perhaps it is more correct to say that today, instead of a dream, I had a vision. Anyone can have a dream - but dreams don’t require action to remain a dream. Visions demand action - they must be acted upon or the vision causes more problems than it would have to bring it to fruition.
I can honestly say, for the first time in a long time, that I feel as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I feel young and full of hope.