ambition

My ambition is high. Higher than I am yet willing to admit on this blog. This is part of my reason for not wanting to compete. I do not need to work myself up over things that in my long-term view are so minor. Even with high ambitions, I'm sometimes feeling lazy. In fact, I haven't worked or brought in any income since I moved from New Mexico. That was four years ago. I've been finished with school for over a year now. My friends have jobs and responsibilities, yet here I am - visiting the rose gardens, reading, thinking.

And what for? Sometimes I ask myself that question. The truth is that I still don't know, but my spirit soars far above where I am now. I left the east coast to break my limiting thoughts. I needed to be somewhere new, where location doesn't slowly eat into my dreams. Even now, I can feel the pull of bills, responsibilities, attitudes, stereotypes, and preconceptions that we so often let define our view of what's possible. The great masters retreated into the wilderness, and I think it is because only there can we escape all the things that seek to define us. There we can remember that all things are possible - that hardly anything we worry about is of real importance. What is of real importance is the question.

I missed Aikido today, but I rebought the Art of Peace. It's a collection of O-sensei's sayings, along with a short biography. Maybe tomorrow is the day, but suddenly I feel that the woods and water are calling me. A retreat wouldn't be bad.

Even when I can watch my dance growing, there is a nagging fly on the wall that says I'm not accomplishing anything right now. (I'm not even dancing right now.) However, I choose not to leave this question only to logical reasoning, because that would elicit a negative answer. I choose to turn to a cultivated sense of Faith. This is a phenomenon talked about by Napoleon Hill and Tony Robbins, and it makes sense to me. As a kid, I always had the impression that I should effortlessly and naturally have faith - this was probably because all my doubts concerning religion were answered with the "faith retort." I never thought of faith as something that could happen by CHOICE. As a kid, I might have thought the faith retort to be less meaningful if you told me faith occurred by choice. It is only as an adult that I find it more powerful.

So, readers of my blog: I have ambition and faith. And doubt. I sometimes don't know what I'm doing, but I do know that I can't see myself doing anything else. I feel as though judgment is forthcoming, but I certainly feel ready to be judged as my defense is the only one I can honestly give.