Find out if you are on the wrong track.
People like to say that all roads lead to Rome (your destination), but…
It’s not true!
Two or three routes lead you to Rome; the rest of the roads are dead ends of this labyrinth called life.
I know because I have spent decades wandering through them like a soul in pain.
Living like a Zombie on autopilot. Avoiding thinking. Avoiding feeling. Doing what I was told, anesthetizing my pain with alcohol, carbohydrates, and nicotine.
Living a mediocre life to fit in.
Until I started to see these subtle signs that I was on the wrong track, and I woke up.
1. You keep cursing.
“bless” comes from the Latin benedicere and means “to invoke divine protection.”
We can subdivide the word into bene (good) and dicere (to say).
Ergo,
Bless = Saying good words.
And therefore,
Saying good words = To invoke divine protection.
In other words, I realized that if I started speaking well about myself, those exact words with which I constructed my inner narratives would break the spell of the shitty life I was leading.
And it worked.
Because analogously, “curse” comes from the Latin maledicere and means “to curse” 😉
We can subdivide the word into malus (bad) and dicere (to say).
Ergo,
To curse = Saying bad words
And therefore,
Saying bad wors = To curse your life.
Moral: if you don’t stop talking bad to yourself, you are cursing yourself. Therefore, you are unlikely to be on the right track. Change it by speaking well of yourself, and you will bless yourself.
2. Your heart is not walking with you
You know you are on the right track if your heart is moved.
To stir comes from the Latin commŏvēre, which means to set in motion, excite, and agitate.
And that’s what happens to your heart, which is the GPS of your soul when you’re on the right track.
Your heart gets agitated, activating your intuition and sixth sense.
Therefore, if you are not moved and stimulated by the life you lead, it is probably because you are on a path that does not belong to you.
Moral: listen to your inner GPS; you will only live one life. You don’t want to waste it walking someone else’s path. It is better to walk your path, even if it scares you. That fear, in truth, is the adrenaline of adventure.
3. You feel dirty
Before writing, I dedicated my life to selling.
I have sold everything: Real Estate, Insurance, Banking Services, Lawyer Services, you name it.
The point is that my former life was a mirage.
I didn’t feel good about becoming the new Gordon Gekko.
I felt like I was somehow betraying my calling.
I know it sounds wild, but it is my truth.
So I can assure you of two things.
- If you feel dirty/nasty doing what you do, you are not on the right path.
- And that when you finally listen to your heart and take the right path, it feels like a shower so deep that it washes away all the miseries you had inside. (Even the childhood traumas it washes away 🙂
Moral: you can ignore your calling for a while, but your calling won’t stop pounding on the door of your heart and conscience until you heed it. And believe me, it does it for your good.
Bonus
Once, my grandfather took me to the movies and bought me a pack of popcorn and Coke. And once in the theater, he said, “Life is like that soda. You suck and suck nonchalantly through the straw until you hear the sound of the ice hitting the carton. And then you realize the party’s over.”
Moral: Make your life the movie of your dreams before you run out of soda.
A virtual hug
AG