(42) What I learned about noticing the clues
March 20, 2011
I guess much of my 43Things in 43Years blog has been about this very subject, but I feel it needs tying up in some way.
I’ve called this post noticing the clues because I think that’s what I’ve learned to do over the years and it’s certainly what I’ve noticed I have been doing whilst writing this blog. Many of my statements here over the last 40 odd weeks have mentioned intuition, signs, my Universe, co-incidences, asking for what you want, flow, purpose and generally shaping your future and then letting it go and seeing what happens.
The last ten months or so have thrown up example after example of how magical my life is and yet it must appear very mundane to the outsider. I live in an unremarkable town, co-raise my lovely daughter, my life purpose seems to be to make connections and I pay my way by earning money by a variety of unconnected means. Whatever else I learn in life – and I’m sure there’s another 43 years worth of learning to come! – what’s happened here cannot be undone. I’ve summed up my thoughts about life, to date, and produced what I feel is a very solid framework for living. A blueprint, a checklist, a suggestion.
Whatever life is about (and let’s hope no one figures it out or our journey would then become very dull) I have learned that it can be approached in a way that leads to happiness and joy, whatever the circumstances. As ever, I am certainly not claiming to be immune to the doldrums, negative thinking, or stress, it’s just that those phases seem to pass and my true feelings about life re-establish themselves pretty quickly. As I have ‘decided’ that life is a crazy process that we’re all going through I also decided to treat it as a game. Spotting the clues as they occur has been one of the most enjoyable parts. Chance meetings with people, co-incidences, engineering the future by taking the first steps of a plan, intuition, living in the moment and seeing what happens, taking off on a spontaneous flight of fancy. All have led to clues about what I am doing next in life. And the most amazing part of it all is that I have actually let go of what I’m doing next in my life. I have plans and aims of course, but I am happy to let the clues point me to where I need to be. If there’s no clue, I carry on with what I’m doing.
You may have read in an earlier blog about my Universe that it’s no longer an existence outside of me, it’s a motivational force I now process internally. Makes me sound nuts I know, but just the thought of it has allowed me to step back and not sweat the small stuff (mostly!) and notice the magic in our existence.
Turns out I am a bone fide hippy after all.
