Pogue,

Having consumed the great piece of wisdom I sent you last week, ‘Go Deep Or Go Home (1)’, I must ask you, have you managed to slow down and are you taking life more deliberately? Are you taking the time to think things through, even (especially) the things you do day in and day out? A basic question like: “Why am I doing this? What does it add to my life?”, can lead to a small revolution if followed through. If you ask yourself the question and find the answer coming back: “Because it’s the way I’ve always done it” or “Someone said do it like this” take a rain check ☔️. Go back a step or two and observe yourself. Check out your options because, you know there are always options! And doing the things other people do doesn’t lead to much colour in life or any self discovery.

in the end,
you will talk more about the journey
and not about the destination.

Nitin Namdeo

So, understand why you do the things you do. I say again, observe yourself. Take the time even if it means you do less things. Better to do a few things and find contentment and pleasure in doing them than fill your life with activity and just distract yourself. Is your life making you smile? If it isn’t it may well be that just doing less is the solution. Don’t accept a mediocre life when you have the potential for so much more.

Concentrate on the things closest to you, as it is these that form the foundation of your life. Making changes here, however small, can be immense. Think pebble landing in a pond and the way the ripples spread out. Changes in the things that are foundational to your life can affect everything so make sure the changes are thought through and grounded. You will also, if dealing at this level, need to allow time for new ways to establish. You’ve been doing something this way like, forever, so doing it any other way will need working at. Many say it takes 30 days to establish a new habit.

By concentrating on these fundamental areas you will find yourself able to go deep as you explore each one and take time to understand the ‘How’s’ and Why’s’ to what you do. Look at the options, which you may never have done before, try them, pick one up and put it down again. Turn them over and over. Before you did this life was like oil poured on water covering a large area but having absolutely no depth. You spread yourself wherever you went. Things were done adequately but never excellently, and then you were off to find the next thing.

Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.

Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you,
so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.

Paula Coelho

Now is the moment to stop, not spread, not pick up anything new, but rather go deeply into what you have and what you do. Many will tell you that the next great exploration for man is space. I’m thinking it is the journey within because if it isn’t aren’t we just taking the little we are and spreading it widely? All our issues, and yes we do have some good points, and spreading them further afield? However the journey within will bring us face to face with all that we are, little by little and we will be invited to deal with it if, indeed, it does need dealing with. It’ll make us question the things we possess, test their value and we will as a mater of course, possess less. Our values will slowly transfer from what the world perceives us to be, and how the world we inhabit (and we all inhabit different worlds) dictates we behave in the name of acceptability, to the values we discover establish peace within our lives.

The inner pilgrimage is the continuous (re-)discovery of that which lights us up and, then, taking the steps towards the sacred place.

whenawayfarer.com

Please don’t substitute an exceptional life for ‘things’. The greatest distraction of our times, things we feel we need to possess. All the time they’s someone telling me I so need their product, like it will so fill the gap in my life (which I never knew I had, by the way) and then I acquire it and spread my life still thinner. Yet more possessions to care for. Oil on the water. My interest is stretched. My attention further divided.

Ask yourself, into how many of these ‘things’ are you placing your energy? You have a limited amount of energy. How far are you being drawn from a deeper experience of life? Go deep or go home.

Yours, taking life slowly,

Wic