Growing up I did many of the things I was supposed to do and were socially acceptable – I studied hard and got good qualifications, I worked hard, did well, became fairly successful selling computers to Japanese Banks in the City of London. I was fairly happy to start with, but increasingly found it didn’t hold much meaning for me. My heart wasn’t in it.
I had begun to ask myself some of those bigger questions, like, “Well, if I am not here to sell computers to banks, why am I here to do?” Answers began to come to me like, “You are here to help people live inspired work lives, to teach, to be creative and even write books.” That sounded wonderful, but I kept thinking, “But I am a computer salesman from Essex, people like me don’t do things like that. Anyway, I can’t even inspire myself at the moment, let alone inspire anyone else!” But those inner voices would not go away, and indeed got louder.
By my late 20’s, the disparity between my inner desires, dreams and longings and outer sense of self and my acquired personality became so great that I could no longer contain that conflict. I could no longer suppress the conflict or compensate by pretending I was happy when I wasn’t. I suppose I had an early mid life crisis and out of that I made a decision to head in anew direction and I made a break for authenticity rather than doing what I thought I was supposed to. I crossed an invisible threshold and listened to the calling of my deeper self. I said to myself, “I am going to follow my heart, my sense of joy and inspiration and see where it takes me. I am curious about what I can become.”
Has it been easy? Yes and no. At times it is gloriously easy, and at other times it is seems difficult, and sometimes impossible. I don’t consider myself to be a rebel who goes against convention and social conditioning. Rather I consider myself to be a warrior of the heart – living as truly and authentically as I can, with a deep desire to keep learning, keep growing, shedding my conditioning and becoming more of authentic self. I am curious about what I can become, what I can achieve, who I can help and how many people I can inspire, teach and positively influence. I want to live as full and authentic a life as I can and to grow keep growing bigger than my fears and not be a prisoner to them.
Today, I am living my destiny for sure. I continue to be astonished at how far one idea has taken me, and continues to take me. I have come a long way and covered a lot of territory. A quote that has guided my life is from Joseph Campbell who taught us, "If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living."
My work feels like my ministry. I am not Christian, but feel like my work is my way of helping, making a contribution and having meaning. It feels like one of the major ways I share my talents, love and caring with the world. I and my work never stay in one place for long, and I constantly evolve my ideas, thinking and awareness.
