I've spent the past 40 years dancing to the beat of a drummer like that of most of my peers. The drummer is keeping the goal-oriented beat. I'm living with a partner, Jason, and working with another man, Roger, that dance to the beat of a different drummer. Today, while driving in a car after an AFS lunch hosted by Curtis Wayne, I heard the beat of that other drummer for the first time in my adult life, while trying to articulate the differences between Roger and Jason compared to the rest of us. Their drummer (Jason's and Roger's) is keeping the passion-oriented beat. At this very moment, I, for the first time, understand that I will never truly attain what I've been trying to find for myself (personal success/happiness) because I'm listening to the wrong drummer's beat. Happiness, true all encompassing happiness, and true good fortune will be had by me only after I start focusing on the other drummer's beat. The passion beat. It isn't about goals. It isn't about rewards. It isn't about accomplishment. It is choice that is made on a completely different level of evaluation and valuation. It is about giving out into the universe with passion and without thought of benefit/ROI simply for the sharing of an experience. It is sharing for the love of it, whatever "it" may be. The energy that is put forth in that moment, will ultimately come back to you in ways that you cannot predict, and will provide you with that which you need and perhaps aren't yourself even aware of yet as a remote possibility or something you even want. It is the way of the universe. You reap what you sow.
In our society, we are taught to be goal-oriented, to make choices using a decision-making structure that keeps beat with the goal-oriented drummer. Dancing to the passion drummer is frowned upon in our society. When we see people that have attained notable success and happiness by way of the passion drummer (primarily) we often mark it down as "luck" or "leading a charmed life" and we prescribe that it is silly to follow in those footsteps to attain our own fulfillment, because we've been taught from a young age to attain things by reaching goals, so surely happiness is no different, just set another goal. Oh, how I at this very moment see so clearly the flaw in this! We can never fulfill this desire by way of the goal-oriented drummer. It is the passion drummer that leads to the path we so crave. I hear it, and its beat is nearly incomprehensible to my virgin ears. But I know with ever fiber in my being, that I have struck gold.
About seven years ago, I sat in my cubicle in a simple moment where I found a concept that profoundly changed my world (my "being in my boat" concept), how I looked at things, how I made choices and it was the catalyst for change in my life on levels that are difficult to articulate but have completely allowed me to make a new life for myself. Today, I recognize that I have once again found myself in my cubicle in a simple moment where I have found a concept that I know will profoundly change my world once again. I am so very grateful for the chance to be on the cusp of something so great. I can feel it because I've been here before at a different point in my life, with a different lesson to uncover and so I understand the relevance of this moment, this discovery, this juxtaposition in my view of my world and the profound impact I know it will have.
I write this for myself, so I do not forget this moment, so that I spend time in the near future to explore it, to meditate on it, to nurture its growth until it takes on a life of its own, a life of transformation.
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