I have faith that I am capable of anything. Beyond that, I have faith that I will achieve my pie-in-the-sky dreams. I will be with my soul mate. I will become enlightened. These aren't so much ifs to me as whens or hows. This understanding goes beyond rational thought. I don't have any logical basis for these conclusions, I guess it is just something I foresee as a natural consequence of life.
I have wanted to become enlightened for longer than I knew there was a word for it. I wanted to become enlightened for all the wrong reasons. So that I could be overwhelmingly happy all the time. So that I could achieve all my goals. So that I could help people and have respect and admiration. More recently, so that I could be at peace with myself.
I realized that the root of my unhappiness for so many years is the disconnection between what I intend and what I am. I have all these ideas of how I want to change my life, who I want to be, what I want to have. I want a meaningful romantic relationship with a man who loves me for me. I want to bring peace to everybody I meet. I want to create a beautiful piece of litetature. I want to be hard working, centered, brilliant. I want to be healthy and strong of body and mind. And yet, I have failings aplenty. So the first thing I did was to stop worrying so much about what I wanted to be. That just left me with what I am.
I had an epiphany that my thoughts are not my own. Put another way, I am not just my thoughts. For a long time, I thought that my conscious mind was the root of all existence. Instead, it is just an aspect of the real mind, and a minor one at that. I thought that enlightenment lied in the conscious mind. Maybe it does I can't ignore any aspect of my experience. It is all valid. So I am not just my thoughts, I am not just my ideal image of myself, I am not just my future or my past. I am just me now here, no escaping that. Not only do I have to live with that, I have to embrace that. Right after my epiphany, I was me for a couple days, just me. I liked it, but it faded away.
So now I have my dilemma which I have been fighting for years and have yet to triumph over. Free will or determinism. It doesn't matter, because I have a choice. I have a choice. Why do I do what I do? So often, it isn't what I think I want to do. So where does the choice come from? Is my mind in conflict? Is it out of control? I don't know. I don't care.
I can be mindful of my choices. If I am mindful, I always do what I intend. Why have I spent so many years doing otherwise? Am I afraid that I am wrong in my belief of what I intend? Can this even be thought about? I don't care.
I'm going to be mindful. I know how. I can do it. Thats it.
