If you remember from the introductory video, there are three steps necessary to prepare for E & E:

1. Understand the nature of the journey
2. Take a Knowcation
3. Calibrate your compass

The remainder of Module 2 will focus on helping you take the very FIRST step to prepare for the E & E journey. Then in Module 3, we’ll focus on taking the remaining two preparatory steps, and finally in Module 4 we’ll get started with our “Point B” experiments.

Step 1: UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF THE JOURNEY

The first step in preparing for your E & E journey involves understanding the nature of the journey. When most of us think about taking a journey and finding our paths, we think of a straight, more or less linear path from start to finish, from A to D.

In reality, though, our paths are rarely linear. Instead, they are often winding and , sometimes circular, and they are inevitably filled with ups and downs, rememberings and forgettings, slumberings and awakenings.

What’s more, there is no definitive endpoint as the notion of “Point D” suggests; rather, the journey is a continually unfolding process, one that will continue to evolve and unfold before us– often in new and unanticipated ways– for the rest of our lives! Point D is not an endpoint, but a stepping stone to Point E, which is a stepping stone to Point F, and so on and so forth… the journey is a continual process rather than a path with one singular, definitive endpoint or destination.

The evolutionary nature of the journey also means that we are already in the process of finding our way right now, as we speak! We are already much further along than we currently realize! (And this is something to be celebrated and to remind ourselves of every day :)).

When I found my way from a passionless, interest-less youngster into a life full of interests and passions (including writing, marketing, business, personal development, psychology, and spirituality), I had found my way to one endpoint, one destination, one “Point D”– and yet in a sense, I hadn’t reached the endpoint at all– I’d simply reached a new beginning point from which I could now explore how to integrate these newfound interests and passions into a rewarding career (and ultimately, a rewarding life).

The endpoint of discovering my passions led me to the beginning point of creating The Unlost– which eventually led me to the end point of my old accounting job– which led me to the beginning point of launching The Unlost into a business and creating this e-course– which led me to another beginning point of starting part time work with a web consulting firm in my hometown of Boise, Idaho–  and so on and so forth. My path is still in the process of unfolding, even as I find my way into answers that are far from where I began.

Lastly, keep in mind that because the journey is an ever-unfolding process rather than a linear straight line, our needs and wants and interests may very well shift as we progress on our paths: What we want or need at one point may change down the road, and that’s OK. In this sense, there is no definitive endpoint because we may find that once we arrive at an endpoint and are happy there for a time, our wants and needs might shift with time.

Our paths are always evolving, often changing, we never quite arrive… and yet we’ve always already arrived; we are always already in the process.

Can you grasp the paradoxical nature of this statement?

Such is the nature of life… it is a continually unfolding, up-and-down, starting-and-ending-and-beginning-again process.

And from now on, using the E & E process to guide us, we’ll be able to live and to navigate this squiggly journey much more effectively and deliberately.

Read on as I dive deeper into the implications of the nature of the journey, mah friend.

THE MYTH OF THE “AHA” MOMENT

If we can’t always “think” our way into the answers, and if instead we live and evolve our way into them, then what implications does this hold?

For one, it busts the myth of the “aha” moment.

You know, the “aha” moment we’re all seeking— that one magical moment in which “the answer” hits us like a bolt of lightning and we finally have it ALL figured out!!!

That’s how it’s supposed to work, right? The younger and naïve-r Therese of 2007 sure thought so.

I was looking back at some of my old journals the other night, and I found a lot of entries just like this one, written the year after I’d graduated college:

8/2/07:

It seems like my life has been consumed lately by trying to figure out where I want to go with my life and what I want to do. But the more I think about it, the more confused and frustrated I get. When am I finally going to know the answer?!

Back in the day, I imagined that “the answer” would hit me like a bolt of lightning. I imagined that the day would come when I’d jump out of bed with purpose, throw my fist in the air, and suddenly shout, “AHA! I finally KNOW what I’m meant to do with my life!”

And once that answer came to me, I was certain that my life would finally be solved. I’d have it figured out once and for all!

Sorry to burst your bubble, Therese of 2007, but things don’t usually happen this way.

Instead of experiencing one sudden “aha moment,” finding your career and life path is a process that occurs over time. Like finding a spouse, the puzzle pieces often come together slowly and eventually, not all at once. Over the course of months or years, one thing leads to another– you run into Sally, who introduces you to Larry, who invites you to a picnic, where you meet your future employer, and while working at that job, you “finally” meet Gretchen!

Think of it like the process of a chicken hatching from an egg.

The “hatching” is akin to finding your spouse or coming into a well-fitting career. It may appear to be a one-step magical “aha” moment, but in fact the chick has been incubating inside the egg for quite some time. It started off as a yolk, and slowly, gradually over time, it transformed into a chick. After a long process of incubation, it finally hatched and peeked its little head out of the eggshell!

The hatching was a big step to be sure, but it was far from an isolated event. Instead, it was the natural outcome of a long incubation period– one “final” step in a long chain of events.

YOU’RE IN THE PROCESS NOW

If the process happens gradually over time… then guess what that means, guys?

It means you’re already in the process right now.

Think back to the story about meeting your future hottie-wife. When you run into Sally at the grocery store, you have no idea that you’re about to meet Larry and that two months later, you’ll go to a picnic and get a job, and that at that job you’ll eventually meet the love of your life.

And yet even though there’s no way you can put the puzzle pieces together when you’re in the grocery store or at the picnic, you are nevertheless in the process.

For all those years I was grasping for the answers, I was in the process the whole time and I didn’t even know it. Every circumstance I encountered was leading me up to the place in which I find myself now.

For all that time inside the egg, the yolk was in the process of becoming a “real chicken.” (Ha!)

You’re in the process now and you don’t even know it! Yeah! YOU ARE ALREADY IN THE PROCESS!

Can you come to trust this?

LIFE WILL NEVER BE “SOLVED”

The “aha” moment is a myth. You’re already in the process.

And as a third implication of “living” our way into the answers, I’m gonna hit you with one more suckerpunch:

The endpoint is a myth.

That is, we never quite “get there,” guys. The process never ends.

Because even as you find the answers you’d been seeking– even as the chicken hatches and even as you find your lovermuffin– you still haven’t reached the endpoint. A new phase of the process has already begun. Instead of being all like, “The chick has finally hatched from the egg!”, you begin to think, “This young chick’s life has just begun!”

Instead of wondering, “Who am I gonna marry?”, you begin to wonder, “Am I ready to marry Gretchen? Can marriage really last forever? When are we gonna have a kid?”

Once I finally discovered what I loved to do and what made me come alive, I began to wonder how (or if) I could make a living from these passions. One question was quickly replaced with another.

And what’s more, who’s to say that my passions will remain static throughout my life? Who’s to say that I won’t fall out of love with Gretchen?

Do you see what I’m getting at here?

The process never ends. There is no endpoint.

Because once you figure one thing out, it’s on to the next thing, anyhow. Or perhaps we find that our answers might shift and change with time, and that’s OK, too.

A friend of mine, Justyna Czekaj, recently described her personal realization that the process of life is elastic and ever-changing:

Of all the things I have dreamed of being in my life, probably only an astronaut was not one of them. My dreams took me to the catwalks of Fashion Week, the inside of gritty New York City hospitals, off-roading through the Australian Outback with an SLR slinging around my neck, and driving across the Sahara as part of a heavily armed envoy. But none of this seemed like enough. I had a lot of dreams, but was looking for something concrete. I should be a world-famous writer, a doctor, or a lawyer. I wanted to be one of those people who knew what they wanted to be since they were 5, drawing pictures of skyscrapers and stethoscopes; already too smart to ingest the Crayolas they were drawing with.

Instead, I kept transitioning between dreams in a not so seamless process. I felt like I was being led down different roads by a crappy GPS that kept recalibrating. I really relate to that guy in those Allstate commercials.

Until recently, I realized that I am not static and neither is life. Things keep changing, moving, shifting, sometimes towards us and sometimes away from us. Our only goal should be to run with the current rather than fighting against it.

Dreams should be elastic, revolutionizing themselves every day as we get a better idea of not only what we want, but what it is that we truly need. Right now I dream of becoming the best writer and real estate agent I can be. A few years from now, those dreams will still be present, but I may be dreaming of becoming a wife and mother.

And it’s creativity in living the life of our dreams every day, rather than waiting and striving for some notion of our dream life that is only supposedly going to occur in the future, that really matters.

Justyna’s found contentment in living and trusting the process rather than demanding one final answer that will finally “solve it all for good.”

In my interview with Soren Gordhamer, founder of the Wisdom 2.0 Conference, he speaks of the shifting nature of the process as well:

 

(This was just a short clip of Soren’s interview. To view the full interview, click on over to The Sweet Shop.)

So be patient. It’s a process, not a one-step, sudden “AHA” moment. The old adage stands truer than ever: “It’s a journey, not a destination.”

You never reach the endpoint– not ever. Life will never be “solved,” and it doesn’t have to be. That’s because life isn’t a problem to be solved, but a process to be lived. We will be living this process, we will be living these chapters and “doing our homework” for our entire lives. Finding our truest path is not a clear cut process with a definitive “endpoint.”

I now see that cultivating [our truest lives] is not like trying to reach a destination. It’s like walking toward a star in the sky. We never really arrive, but we certainly know that we’re heading in the right direction.

– Brene Brown

THIS DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SUCKY

This isn’t meant to be a discouraging statement. In fact, it can be beautiful, and far from a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that your questions will never be answered or that your path will never become clearer. We will find answers; we will come closer to our truest selves, and yet even as we find the answers, new questions will continue to unfold before us. Whatever answers you find will not lead you to a final resolution, but instead to the “finding within the next finding within the next finding.”

And that, my friend, is a beautiful thing.

This past spring (of 2012) I came into some answers that I’d been seeking for years. After having questioned my path for so long, the next step finally became clear to me: I realized that I wanted to leave my hometown, my accounting job, and my life as I knew it behind in order to embark on an indefinite roadtrip around the country and to focus on writing and building The Unlost (Crazy, right?!).

“Finally, my life is SOLVED!” I thought to myself. “After all these years of questioning, things are finally so clear!”

And yet despite the level of clarity I’d reached, once I stepped out onto the road I realized that the journey was far from over.

My answers were soon replaced with new questions: I had no clue what lay ahead for me. For how long would I travel, and to where? What was the next step for The Unlost? (I hadn’t yet decided to create this e-course.) How would I make a living, and where would I end up?

Suddenly I felt lost all over again. Finding answers had led to the clarity I craved, but it had also plunged me into a new and uncertain path– a new beginning altogether. I still hadn’t reached the endpoint– instead, I was back at the beginning.

DAMN!

I wrote an email to my college professor and mentor, Dr. Kent Hoffman, describing how I felt. To quote Sue Monk Kidd:

When you can’t go forward,

and you can’t go backward,

and you can’t stay where you are

without killing off something deep and vital in yourself,

you are on the edge of creation.

Kent’s response hit me to the core and reminded me that during this lifetime, we are continuously living within a process to which we cannot know the “end”:

Therese,

You know everything I’m about to say.

Sue Monk Kidd takes the words out of my mouth: because you can’t go back, for sure. And you don’t really know what forward is (because it isn’t . . . yet). What you’re about to find is what you need to find. And will. (No timeline, of course. Year? Less? More?) But what you will find is essential, required, what will lead you to the next finding within the next finding. I couldn’t trust a process more than the one you’re on.

It’s just that it’s utterly unknowable at this point what is going on. You’re in that “in between” (liminal) place – “the edge of creation” is a lovely way to describe it. But for now, it’s an edge and there isn’t any creation to be seen. Or known. Or made sense of. And this will go on – periodically – for some time.

So be it.

You are well on your way, and that’s all that matters.

Keep trusting, even when you don’t trust.

“The next finding within the next finding…” what a beautiful way to put it.

Our paths are continuously evolving, our lives are continuously unfolding before us. And so it is for us all: as we walk our paths, we are continuously on the edge of creation.

We will never get there, there is no endpoint– and yet at the same time, we are already here. We have always been here.

Again, the “no endpoint” thing is not to be discouraging– if we follow the steps of this guide, we can— and in fact, we inevitably will— continuously grow and evolve into our truest selves and step into our truest career paths. We will continue to get closer and closer and closer, and we will make progress– in fact, we will find ourselves at many endpoints (that are also beginning points) as we navigate our way through our lives and our careers.

And yet even as we find answers and discover our truths, the answers we find will inevitably lead to more questions, and that’s OK. In fact, this is what keeps life interesting and what leaves room for potential to unfold.

What’s true for us may change and shift over time, and that’s OK, too.

And yet no matter where it is we find ourselves, the work of our lives is to learn to trust that we are already in the process– to have faith that even though we can’t quite predict what will come next, we are taking steps in the right direction.

Instead of seeking some “aha” moment, some sudden flash of insight, can we come to understand that the discovery of our own unique paths and of our truest selves is a continual lifelong process?

Can we learn to be content in the questions, trusting that we are in the process?

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

– Martin Luther King, Jr

HALLWAYS

 

They say that when one door shuts, another one opens. It’s the hallways that are a bitch!

In some sense, we are all in the hallways, all of the time.

Life is a hallway that never ends, and that’s not a bad thing. Instead, it can be a good thing. It can be the thing that allows for endless space and potential in which a life of greatness can unfold.

A life without hallways would be no life at all.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS COURSE

To sum it all up: life is a process, a continual process. Finding your career path— finding your life ‘s path— this is also a continual process.

This purpose of this course is not to give you the final ONE answer so you can move on with your life and finally know “the answers.”

Yes, this coursee will help you live your way into the answers you seek, and it will help you discover your truest path.

But at the same time, your path will continually be evolving. You’ll never “get there” once and for all– instead, you’ll be continually walking toward a star, getting closer and closer and closer.

Take a deep breath. See if you can drop the expectation that you’ll figure it all out overnight.

Realize that, despite the ingrained notion that we’re supposed to jump straight from where we are now into the perfect “endpoint,” it in fact rarely happens this way.

Instead, it’s a process that happens over time, a beautiful process that will continue to unfold for the rest of your life.

You are well on your way, my friend, and this is what matters.

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Next: Now that you’ve understood the nature of the journey, it’s time to get movin’ on your Module 2 homework!