The Journey Is The Path

One of the principles I try to live by is ‘own your journey’ and another is ‘serve others,’ and to me these are very much linked. If we have our own issues with our health, relationships, work, etc that we leave unresolved, because we don’t want to deal with them, we are not in a good position to serve others. Therefore, in order to serve others well we need to make sure we are in a good place.

The way we make sure we are in a good place is to take ownership of our problems and find solutions for them. Anyone who has reached advanced stages of a spiritual practice will be effective in serving others, because they have put in the work of resoling their problems. Whether you are spiritual or not, you still have to do the work.

Imagine having such peace of mind and clarity that you help to solve the problems of others effectively. If more people took ownership of their lives the world would be a better place. Let’s do the work and make it better together.

I have been reading the book When Things Fall Apart by the Buddhist Nun Pema Chödrön and in it she talks about the path we walk only existing in the present. We cannot see the future, but we can see the past behind us, but only in our memory of it. She said “What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.”

In other words the actions we take in the present influence what our future will be like. If we want a positive future our aspiration and exertion should reflect this in the present. We influence our next steps on our path with our mind, speech and actions in every moment.

The test comes when we find ourselves in a challenging situation. How we handle the situation also influences our future. If we lose it and react emotionally, then our immediate future will be different than if we calmly looked for a cause of the situation and looked for a solution to make it better.

It is not always easy to remain calm, but, with practise it is possible.

Tag: The Journey Is The Path

Serving Others Better