Where are you trying to get?

"You cannot act where you are not. You cannot act where you have been, and you cannot act where you are going to be. You can only act where you are."

Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, Chapter 11

Funny, even as I sat down to write this, I started to scroll backward through the days and found myself about to read about my past. Sometimes I find it useful or even inspiring to read some of my past writings, but that's not my intention today.

A few days ago I took twenty-plus pounds of journals and threw them in the trash can on trash day.

I've been slowly but surely purging things in my house. A few weeks ago I donated about half of my books to the library. I could keep going and not miss most of them. During my next upcoming visit from my organizer, we're hitting the closets and clothing. I can hardly wait!

Sometimes it feels great. Sometimes it feels weird. Purging those journals was mostly weird and kind of reactionary.

I'd been wondering for a while what, if anything, I should do with them. But I'm pretty hip to what's in them: past.

Does relieving myself of past writing free me from my past? Perhaps it helps. I've been known to open those books and just get lost in them. Solidify a false sense of self based on how horrible I think I am that I haven't grown more (that I'm still whining in similar ways, still having relationships that make my friends say, "That's not what you want.") or feel guilt or shame for how out-of-it I've been. How wistful and naive. Other times I become present to my on-going commitment to and devotion to the Divine and see in writing the continuing unfolding of that experience.

Any journal I write today would be more or less the same.

Last night I was at a concert (thanks, Giraffie, for going with me and making it all possible! I had a great time!) and I had a great ah-hah moment:

I saw that I've been living as if there's some place to get to. The money. The man. The Airstream Dance Party.

And as I sat on the toilet at the Cynthia Woods Pavilion, I knew: THIS IS IT. There is nothing else but this.

There's nothing else but me here, legs crossed (feet freshly pedi'ed), Ray Brown Trio playing on my Abdullah Ibrahim Pandora, the slight breeze from the ceiling fan making itself known to the left side of my face, my clothes clicking against the side of the dryer in the next room, this key board warm underneath the heels of my hands.

Where else is there to be?

I'd been wondering earlier yesterday evening if almost 40 is a little late to be getting my life started. What I wonder now is, what would have me think that it's just starting. It is a continual becoming.

Somehow I've been duped into thinking that there's somewhere else to be. Some other way to be before I've made it, am complete, worthwhile, a success. And such sweet relief at dropping that from a place of knowing, rather than theorizing.

So I go back to the quote from our good little green book at the top of this page:

"You cannot act where you are not. You cannot act where you have been, and you cannot act where you are going to be. You can only act where you are."

There truly is no place to get. The only place we're eventually going to get, in this lifetime, is to our death. And if I'm scurrying to do things -- to make it -- before I get there, what real use is there? I'm going to achieve that finish line no matter what, right? And what about right now?

This music I'm hearing is super mellow and fits in nicely with my now 3/4 drunk cup of chamomile and my pensive and fatigued mood. I have to remind myself that I'm very tired from the big night last night and not to get too lost in thoughts or emotions, for they are all passing.

What's left to do is make my bed, fold and put away my laundry, rest. A little meditation sounds nice. For really, there's nothing else to do. There is this moment, opening up always.

I appreciate this part of Mr. Wattles' philosophy that helps me calm down and focus in a little more. Act more efficiently. But just remember, we do this not to get somewhere. We are right here, aligned with the Supreme Power, that which takes total care of us.