I want “everything”! To do, to know, to learn, to be adept at everything! Some might call this a type “A” personality, but it goes much further than this. It is not a need to keep busy, but rather a hunger to take it all in. This has always been my nature and that hunger served me well in my youth, but has become cumbersome and limiting as I embrace my latter fifties. The reality is that there is just not enough time in a day, a year or a lifetime to make that an achievable or even productive goal. And, the old adage of being a “Jack of all trades and master of none” looms heavy and large as to what can potentially be the outcome.
Over the years deep conversations, a few physical challenges and the resultant inner dialogue of why I am so driven have helped to reign in this compulsive need to extend myself much further than I should. Having great determination of will to keep pushing regardless have at times made it difficult to focus on how and where my energies are should be distributed.
This behavior colors all aspects of my life, but most notably the dynamics of my spiritual path have raised questions around the efficacy of this need to achieve to a place front and center. I wrote the past two weeks about quality versus quantity and this seems an appropriate follow up to those.
We get so caught up in the process of continual movement that we no longer see that we are not truly moving forward, but simply spinning our wheels, caught in the illusion of the moment. The desire to be a proverbial fount of knowledge and experience is always held in the background of spiritual pursuit. The dynamics and intensity of what that includes vary from individual to individual, but the raw desire remains the same. This is after all the catalyst that inspires us to continue on the path of self evolvement and what keeps us on the path in the first place. That fountain may flow with slow and steady drip, arch up filled with push or swell and overflow in what you feed into it; but it is decidedly the source from which we drink.
To keep these impulses in check I use the months of the harvest as a check in point with myself to assess what I have accomplished. I try to pay closer attention to how much I am extending myself, how much I am trying to learn and experience and when I am reaching that non-productive place of over expansion. I set the intent that most of what I have gained up to this point, I will allow to flow outward in teaching, writing and sharing as an act of harvesting the fruits of my efforts. I set the intent that I will keep the seeds of those experiences and new lessons so they may be replanted when there is adequate space for their growth. I set the intent to enter this time in reflection, celebration and joy in what I have achieved and the inroads I have made.
So, ready, set, and act with intent! Slow the pace and really savor the bounty of the journey along the way. What fruits of harvest and intent does your check in show?
Excerpted in Part:
A Weekly Reflection. Musings for the Year (Week 23). R.Fennelly 2012
More information about book at: http://www.robinfennelly.com
Image Credit: A sectional view of the New York Public Library. 1911. Original Source: From Scientific American. (New York : Munn Co., 1845-). From NYPL’s Digital Gallery
The Magickal Pen 
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