“There is no certain way to be.” –Allura Eshmun
I don’t know how old I was or at what point in my journey when I became aware I was marking off the Life Check List.
- Go to church
- Honor thy mother and father
- Get good grades in school to get into a good college
- Attend college and graduate
- Have a good money-making career and have a nice place to stay
- Don’t get pregnant before marriage
- Find a God-minded husband and get married
- Buy a house
- Have kids
At the end of the Life Check List of the certain way to be I realized there is not a certain way to live. I’ve watched others who beat themselves over criticism for completing the Life Check List out-of-order and not according to others. Life cannot be controlled or contained by only obeying a list of rules or commandments of what a group of people think has to be. Only following a check list is not the road map to life fulfillment. Maybe a compass to guide us to where we think we want to go but when we force a certain way to be with mental deadlines and over the top expectations of ourselves, and others and what we see others do is when the blinding veil of ego gets thicker. This way of thinking causes life to fall apart and loses the feeling of abundance because we put all our energy into a list of ideas. This separates us from who we are. We are conditioned to want or feel the need to have a certain way to be and that’s okay. But I’m talking about when you have everything checked off the Life Check List and you are stuck questioning and trying to figure out what else to do with your life. Some may call this a life crisis but I call it a signal to wake up.
I am human too and there are moments when my egoic thoughts wrestle in my mind and fear turns to worrying about what others, who follow similar Life Check Lists, will say. The challenge is to stay balanced in my own lane and to remember who I am.
To refocus, I asked myself, “What makes me happy, brings me joy and what will I do for me and how can I consistently be in tune with my human Spirit because that is truly being?” The Life Check List is an illusion. There is no certain way to be but me.
When I write, over and over and over, I dare to take a step off the ledge and fly like a baby bird who for the first time leaves the comforts of the nest. There is no right or wrong, good or bad, way to live as long as we don’t hurt and love our self and each other. It’s about how we flow with life. It’s about how we row our boat gently down the stream. Merrily, I hope! ?
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