The Incomplete Roadmap of Life

Some recent discussions with a friend :)(: helped shift the focus I have on my life. I notice the scope of things switching from struggling with recent events to stepping back and reflecting on the "bigger picture." For the first time in years, I truly feel the sky can be the limit. On one hand this is exhilarating. On the other hand it is humbling to realize I did not always believe this to be the case.

When I look back over the course of my life, I realize I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out how/why certain things happened. This can be constructive to a point. It can be detrimental as well. There are certain events in our lives that either cannot be explained/fully understood or are not meant to be fully comprehended.

One of the benchmark moments in my life happened when I was twelve years old. I remember the day I heard my father took his life by way of a drug overdose. For many years I felt I needed to arrive at concrete answers as to how and/or why this happened. This also rocked any faith I had in God. I struggled with questions like "How can a loving God take a child's parent away so early in a child's life?" or "How does a loving God allow someone to suffer to the point they choose death over life?"

My faith journey is just that. It is a journey. Over the years I came to realize that many of my questions will never be answered. It comes down to whether I am able to truly acknowledge that or not. If not, I could spend a lifetime searching for answers that do not exist.

There are other traps we can fall into:

+ dwelling on past choices
+ ruminating about future possibilities

We do not want to discount our past or approach the future haphazardly. Instead, we need to arrive at a balance. If we get too hung up on the past (or the future) we will not be able to experience the present.

I have heard the phrase "when one door closes another one opens." It is a simple statement. It captures the essence of our experiences though. We can either embrace our current and future opportunities or focus our energy on what could have been, wonder why something happened, etc.. I think the same could be said about the relationships in our lives.

Our world has gotten much smaller thanks to the Internet. Do we embrace the opportunities offered by this "smaller world" or limit ourselves to older notions when it comes to the relationships in our lives? If we do not approach things with an open mind we might miss a chance to help others, learn more about ourselves, etc..

I recently had some in-depth conversations with a friend online. Should I discount the impact this person might have on my life simply because we do not live across town from one another? We talked about this. We could both expend time and energy trying to understand how/why our paths crossed. During our conversation we agreed it made more sense to celebrate the fact we were each impacting the other person's life.

I think each person has to find his/her own way. Some approaches that work for me may not work for someone else. There are not necessarily right or wrong choices either. I believe keeping an open mind is the best way to fully realize the possibilities that might present themselves in our lives.