What if we don't need a map...

When we are born, no one hands us a map to our life. (Though many times I have thought that would be nice.)

If I had been given one, I would have used it to find out:

What to study...
Which job to take..
Who to marry...
Where to live...
Who to hang out with...

Yet, there is no map.  And oddly, I think the very reason we want a map is based on a faulty premise.  We see our lives as linear.  As if we start at a big red "you are here sign" and move across the dotted line until we get to the big X that marks the treasure spot. We spend our lives trying to take the right steps to get to the treasure so we don't get lost.

What if that whole visual is wrong? 

What if our lives are filled with much more choice and possibility? After all we are living in a 3-D world and not on a 2-D map.  Add in the spiritual dimension and the 3-D plane becomes irrelevant too.

What if we stopped seeing that line and started looking at the hundreds of interactions we have each day? All of the moments that we have to love, engage, appreciate, feel gratitude, see beauty...?

What if how we move through life has much less to do with "the next right step" and far more with who our choices make us? 

What if we stopped searching for signs to figure out the next "right" step and started engaging the training to become?

I think this is the reason we need mentors. I believe it is why the Gospels are an account of Christ's life and not a list of rules. I believe it is why there is value in studying the lives of the saints. I believe it is the reason that listening to horoscopes and fortune tellers has never been the thing that took someone to great heights.

Will we hit places in our life where we really don't know what to do next?  Absolutely.  But at those points, we have to stop seeing ourselves as making choices based on stepping on or off the line and start seeing them as the choices that will make us who we are going to become.  In a line-less model, our view has to be fixed on the person we want to be so that we can choose the things that will shape us.  After all, there is no treasure at a big X that we will find or miss. Our lives are full of beautiful and tragic events. The treasure is found moment by moment along the way for those who have eyes to see it.  And I believe the training is in becoming someone who can see it.