Follow your bliss

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”   

-Joseph Campbell

Some day you will find me,
caught beneath the landslide

In a Champagne Supernova in the sky
-Oasis

It occurred to me recently that I’ve been writing these little essays for a number of years now. Sometimes they’re about travel, or holidays, and sometimes they are just about drinking beer or something. Oddly, others start with some fixation on a song I’ve heard, and how the meaning of this has clarified itself to me later.


This is one of those essays.


The year was 2005 and I was working as a waiter on Mackinac Island. I had just finished up a Master’s Degree in Psychology, but was a long way from doing anything productive. I decided to return to my roots, and go back to the national parks and work for the summer. It was something I’d done quite a bit of in my twenties with great success and, although I was in now in my 30’s, I wanted to try and recapture the magic.


It never really happened.


Oh I still had a fun summer, but it wasn’t quite the same. I wondered if I was just too old, or that perhaps I was just chasing something from my past that I could never reclaim. It was kind of a sad feeling actually.


But all hope was not lost.


That summer I became oddly fascinated by the song “Chamapagne Supernova” by Oasis. A lot of the musicians around town played it as part of their sets, and somehow the lyrics of the song became strangely intertwined with how I was feeling. It conveyed a kind of longing to me. A man in search of a champagne supernova. It sounded so mysterious and interesting. Perhaps the singer was simply hopped up on psychedelics, but in any case, it stuck with me. I wanted to find MY version of this again someday, and strangely I knew I would. I didn’t know how and I didn’t know when, but I instinctively knew that the feeling wasn’t gone. It was just lying dormant for a while, and one day I would find it again.


So on to the following your bliss part. As many know, I’m a huge Joseph Campbell fan, and readily subscribe to the idea of “following your bliss.” Of listening to your intuition at all costs, even when it takes you in radical directions sometimes. I somehow ended up in New Zealand with this philosophy, despite a firmly established career as a psychologist and professor. It doesn’t get much more radical then that.


And yet, two weeks into my stay in my new country, that old feeling of longing started to creep back again. Was I missing something? Were my best days simply behind me? What was I doing wrong? Why wasn’t I “feeling” very different, despite a radical shift in geography? I reminded myself to be patient. These things take time, and the universe answers these kinds of questions at odd times and in strange ways.



But today I finally got it. The past recaptured. That crazy, radical, energy of exploration and discovery that I had been thinking about and trying to recapture for so long.



My champagne supernova…


It’s hard to define these things exactly with words, but it’s just kind of that FEELING when you truly discover a new world for the first time. There’s nothing else like it really. It’s why people love to travel I guess. It’s more than that though. It’s a feeling that you are somehow being guided by something, and that the fates have aligned to put you EXACTLY in this place at this time to understand it. It’s a moment of pure mindfulness, and it is a tantalizing feeling.



You know it when you feel it though..


I hope someone reads this and understands. I hope even one person reads this and decides to take some kind of risk with their life. I’ve been struggling with leaving all of my patients behind, but ultimately I hope they will take my life as more of an example than my words. We find these moments by DOING something. Through action. Through risk. Through daring to venture out of our comfort zones.


Although the hourglass has been flipped, you’re not too old, you’re not too fat, and you’re not too broke. You can find a way if you want something bad enough.



You still have time…





You still have time…

Say Hello and Wave Goodbye

“I think if I've learned anything about friendship, it's to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don't walk away, don't be distracted, don't be too busy or tired, don't take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff.
Jon Katz


"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Mark Twain


Getting ready and making my final preparations to leave America and head to New Zealand. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve been quite busy packing, repacking, sitting on suitcases to make them close, and worrying way too much about what I might be forgetting. I need to get over it.


Pretty sure they have toilet brushes over there. I probably don’t need to bring that.


It’s occurred to me that what’s infinitely more important is to remember to take some time to say goodbye to the people in my life. It’s amazing how quickly these things move to the back burner if you let them, and I’m pretty good at letting them.



While reflecting on this idea, I’ve picked up an earworm. I keep listening to the song “Say Hello and Wave Goodbye” by David Gray. It’s my experience that songs get stuck in our heads for a reason, and this one isn’t hard to figure out. Say hello and wave goodbye. Meaning for me at least, where did the time go with all these people in my life? Time is such a funny thing. Sometimes an individual day, or even an individual HOUR can feel like they last an eternity. Yet years can slip away. Even decades…



I’ve kept these feelings at bay by staying busy. Really busy. I’ve also been using beer. And yet they continue to creep back. Leaving America is saying goodbye to so many things. Goodbye baseball, the 4th of July, and the red white and blue. Goodbye to all the patients, friends, family, and familiarity that provide a sense of security that can’t be completely quantified. It’s a lot to give up, and a number of people have asked me why I would even want to.


In answering this question, I found myself thinking about a scene from the movie “Rounders.” In this particular scene, the lead character has broken even playing poker and started to walk away from the game. He says, “You can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle.”



Then he pauses, and thinks,




“But you sure can’t win very much either.”



That’s what risk is all about. Sure you can lose something; Safety, security, money, a feeling of comfort. If there was nothing at stake it wouldn't scare us. And if we never do anything that scares us?



We sure can’t win very much…



So as I wind down my last days in America, I remember to appreciate all of the things I love, including the people who all contributed so much to all these different chapters of my life. You will be missed. A lot. But for me it’s time to turn the page. You get one chance at this, and I don’t want to have any regrets.



It’s time to play another hand.



So hello again to everyone I've been catching up with over the last month or so. It's been wonderful seeing you again and remembering all the good times.


And goodbye..



Until we meet again..