I’ve dropped off for a bit on writing – well – I’ve been writing, mostly about politics and other things that I’m not going to post here.

Summer is fading and I’ve been stretching time trying to squeeze every minute of sun and fun out of it that I can, but today I happily sat down to write. It’s raining.

I was reading something by Clarissa Pinkola-Estes the other day –

I think we struggle sometimes because we often take on weightier issues to solve, and it makes sense that we struggle, not because we are weak – or back where we started – but because the magnitude of what we are challenged by or what we challenge ourselves with – is greater than before – often in ways that are good and useful and productive, not just challenging.

This is how I live and how I stay alive.

Some people say stop struggling, stop doing, stop trying to change things that don’t really need changing.

For me, it’s not that simple.

I want to be a better human, I want to see what I can see differently, I want to see what’s good for me and what’s not – and act accordingly. I love change and evolution and living and breathing. I love becoming more authentic and more truly ME.

So I do.

I used to operate in a different way, I wasn’t completely aware of my instincts to seek, to problem solve and think through and want to be challenged – so – unconsciously I created that in my life. Drama, chaos, choices in relationships that brought me into situations where I constantly had to struggle. I often wondered what was “happening” to me. When I finally realized it wasn’t happening to me, but I was choosing it, creating it, seeking it because I wanted to discover myself, the truth, the light – whatever you might call it – I paused and thought – if I could be a seeker in a new way maybe I didn’t have to live it out – I could choose to seek and wonder by choosing to seek and wonder actively instead of passively.

I didn’t get there on my own, I’ve had people pass in and out of my life that were mentors, teachers, who helped me find the skills to evolve. I’m grateful for those people in my life who were more aware than I was and have helped me find my way.

I’ve also noticed that I’m not just a seeker, but when I figure things out I want to share them, broadcast them in hopes that someone else might find them useful as well.  I’ve always been this way, as far back as I can remember, I wanted to share what I learned with other people. I want to remind people and myself that we’re all doing our own thing in an effort to become more of who we truly are. I again go back to the lines from Mary Oliver – you do not have to be good, you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 

I don’t have to be good, or what other people deem “good” – but I can be authentic, I can be me.

I hope that something I’ve learned might help someone else.

So now I read, write, search for more information instead of searching for more chaos to stumble through. Chaos may be there, but I can spot it a mile away now and make better choices and move past it more quickly.

What it’s in your life that might be causing drama, chaos, other craziness that you feel has “happened” to you? Do you have any choice in the matter?

Go. Seek.