Change Your Direction - Change Your Future

My recent novel, CeeGee’s Gift, has a lot to say about the future, starting with CeeGee’s Gift itself, a mysterious ability to receive Knowings about the future of others. She works with her friend and mentor, Mr. Tindale, to try and decide how she can best give her gift to help others, even if their future doesn’t look positive. Mr. Tindale tells her an important value of her gift. ‘If people could see where they were headed, maybe they would decide to change direction and change their entire future.’ What a concept. 

CeeGee is not the first to land on this idea. Lao Tzu, credited as a founder of Taoism in the 6th Century wrote, “If you do not change your direction you may end up where you are heading.” And Alcoholics Anonymous offers this Serenity Prayer, ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’

But how do we know if we are heading in our own best direction? Good and bad events can occur by accident, plans fall apart, serendipity can bring unearned blessings. How do we help our children acquire the discernment to know when it is time to change direction? Or when they need to stay the course.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but my own life experiences and writing has helped provide some. I look for what I call the calm center, a sense of inner peace. If I am heading in the wrong direction, this feeling is very hard to achieve. CeeGee seeks it in the marsh, others in prayer, still others through meditation. Ask yourself some questions and allow the answers to inform your direction. Are you harming anyone in your path? Are you living with humility, a willingness to learn and to admit you don’t know everything? In hard times, are there any Silver Linings on the horizon, a special lesson, a change of perspective, an unexpected benefit? If so, the path may be rocky but worth it. And finally, are you open to change? Are you driven by a tendency to impulsiveness or stubbornness, or will you open your heart and mind to the need to either go or stay, regardless of your fear or ego? Is there a lesson you need to learn in this time, or is the path you are taking one that prevents you from learning that lesson? 

Please join the conversation and add your own wisdom.