In the Fall of 2011, I was having dinner with my spiritual mentor to ask his advice on a potentially big decision in my life. I had just started dating my now-husband. Even at that early stage, a few months into a new relationship, I knew in my soul that this guy was IT. There was just one problem. He lived 60 miles away. Sixty miles may not be far, but if you’ve met someone you want for a life partner, that distance meant someone had to move.
I was settled in my dream life of living and working in Inner-City Denver. I lived in a cute apartment on the top floor of an historic building. I taught at a school where I could make a positive impact in kids’ lives. Single and sober, in recovery from a divorce and a decade of alcoholism, I didn’t want to move.
But my brand-new boyfriend didn’t want to move either. He lived in his home town, and worked a great job that couldn’t be transferred. My job as a teacher was flexible. If we ever reached the point of setting up house together, do the “adult” thing and get married, have kids, buy a house, own a dog, etc., downtown Denver was not ideal.
It seemed like I would have to move.
I explained all of this to my mentor, while he listened silently. I asked him what my Higher Power would have me do, what my life path was supposed to be, and how to know I had made the “right” decision.
Then he said something I’ll never forget:
“Maybe God doesn’t care what decision you make.”
I couldn’t believe it. Being raised Mormon, I learned early on to seek God’s advice on everything. Yes. EVERYTHING. Not only the big decisions like where to live and whom to marry, but what to eat, what to wear, and what to do on the weekends. I once had to confess to the Bishop for eating coffee ice cream. Not kidding. God didn’t want me to have coffee.
In 2011, while I had long left the church behind me, the stigma of asking divine counsel on every single life decision remained. Yet here was a man I had come to trust telling me that the divine powers didn’t care what I did with my weekends.
He explained further. Perhaps God, your Higher Power, the Divine Spirit, whomever is “up there,” doesn’t really bother him/her/themself with our choices of home or partner or life path as long as we are doing the work of living and caring for other human beings.
Wow. Shackles on my spirit fell. I saw a life of freedom before me. There was no right decision. That meant there was no wrong decision either. The only requirement I faced was to do my life’s work, to teach, care for others, make this little blue marble better for those I meet, wherever life took me.
When the time came the following year to actually make that earth-shattering decision, the earth didn’t shatter. What decision did I make? Well, let’s just say that my kids think the town rec center is a “big building.”
What about you? Are you wracked and frozen with indecision about what the divine powers want for your life? Let me give you some advice.
Maybe the Supernatural doesn’t care. Maybe the only thing we owe the powers-that-be is to live a good life of service to other people. And animals, trees, plants, mountains, and air while you’re at it.
It’s like Miranda said in the HBO TV show Sex in the City. Miranda, a lawyer, struggling with dating in her 30’s in New York, is beside herself trying to figure out what’s wrong with her that she can’t get these guys she’s seeing to call her back. She comes across life-changing insight. “He’s just not that into you.”
He’s just not that into you! That’s the answer. She feels freed from all the re-hashing of the night’s events, the self-loathing, the blaming, the endless wondering what she should have done to get that person to like her. But, it’s not about her! He just wasn’t feeling it. And would you want to be with someone who wasn’t feeling it? No! Maybe she wasn’t into him!
When she tries to share this wonderful thought with some younger fellow-sufferers, though, it’s not met with the same enthusiasm.
My hope is that you can take my own wonderful thought about god with the same enthusiasm and epiphany as I did.
What’s that you say? You don’t believe in God? Well, good news, because neither do I, per say. I believe in God, Ganesh, Buddha, Shiva, Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, Zeus, Odin, The Great Spirit, The Universe, the stars, heavens, my grandmother-guardian-angel, and don’t forget the Goddess. These days I call myself a Taoist, which means, in three words, I believe “All is truth.”
Still, whomever or whatever you’re seeking to tell you which way to go at your own crossroads, let me offer some soul-freeing food for thought: She/he/them is just not that into you. Maybe there’s no one right decision on which the rest of your life hinges and if you get this wrong everything that follows will be doomed. Perhaps you choose the “wrong” path and end up where you didn’t want to be. And perhaps that path takes you to places you didn’t imagine. And perhaps you regret a decision, or it becomes the best decision of your life.
No matter the outcome, here’s the crux of the issue:
You’ll be alright.
Life will be alright.
Everything will be good, even when it isn’t.
I’ve made bad decisions since that talk with my dear spiritual mentor over a decade ago. I’ve made good ones too. But what I haven’t done is remain frozen with indecision, waiting on a “sign” from god, the Universe, Siddhartha, or my mother, about which choice was the “right” one. I followed my heart, and remained true to that one requirement: Wherever life goes, live for others. And, as a bonus, I’ve felt the guidance and support of the divine along the way.
Do all things in the service of the other carbon-based-upright-two-legged-beings sharing this space with you and you will never make a “wrong” decision. At least, you’ll never make a decision that will ruin your life. Or maybe you will. The point is that no decision is so important that you can’t fix it and learn from it.
I heard once that Nelson Mandela said “I don’t fail. I either succeed or I learn.”
Whether or not Mandela was the first to say those words, they’re good words. A few years ago, I made the worst possible decision I could have made in my professional life. As a consequence, I’m not in the place with my career I had hoped I would be by now. But guess what? Life didn’t end. I move on. I try to serve others the best way I can. I fail, learn, succeed, have days and weeks and months of selfishness, moments of selflessness, fail again, succeed a little more, and so on.
In your own failing, learning and succeeding, remember to throw a little help to our non-upright brothers and sisters who can’t advocate for themselves. The animals need us almost as much as we need them. Don’t forget to speak for the trees, too.
At this time of year, many people reflect on their lives. Where they’ve been and where they’re going. This January, give yourself a break. Do you face a giant scary choice? Are you simply trying to figure out what to do on a Friday night? Pray, talk to your best friend, make lists of pro’s and con’s, consult the cards, and the stars, and call your dad. But also remember that whatever comes next is exactly what was supposed to happen.
You can’t go wrong.