Steering My Own Course

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line?”
(Barbra Streisand: “The Way We Were”)

Candy-floss clouds float across the sky, as I gather my thoughts for today’s blog. From where I sit I can only see bits and pieces of what looks to be a glorious sunrise. Seeing bits and pieces of the “big picture” is the nature of my existence. As I understand it, my five senses provide input about my surroundings, and my brain asembles these into a more complete picture. My actions and reactions are then based on the latter.

Is that all there is to it?

Does my companion see exactly what I see when we look at a sunrise, or a tree? Do they see the same colors and shapes, feel the same textures, taste the same tastes, hear what is said and what is meant in the same way that I process information?

Not at all.

So what’s going on? Why is it that my “big picture” is different than that of the people around me? Why do versions of events witnessed by more than one person vary so widely? Upon reflection, I now realize that mine is more of a “bias picture” than the “big picture”, the actual reality.

Especially when recalling events from the past, emotions and imagination and a host of other “inner traffic” can steer my interpretation down a figurative blind alley. I become hostage to old conditioning and coping mechanisms that operate unconsciously and distort my perception of and responses to what is actually happening. Taking a back seat in my own life is no way to navigate. As James Hollis would say, at some point “we are all asked to re-vision our journey, to reframe our understanding of self and world.”

In sum, if I want to consciously steer my own course, take control over the trajectory of my life, I have to somehow look back, see where my choices (unconscious or otherwise) have led to where I am today, and commit to making different choices based on a vision of who I might become.

And so, with a vision of becoming a more conscious, self-determined and responsible human being, I ask myself: “Who or what is steering my life?”

Or yours?