Looking Back: Connecting the Dots Part I

dots-flickr-patrick-hoesly

Dot One

When I moved to the East Coast as a young adult, I found my element.  New York and Washington, D.C. matched an energy that could not be totally expressed in my hometown.  Everything that I pursued manifested.  I was assertive and confident.  I felt powerful.  Whatever I decided to do became easily within my reach.  I flowed.

Dot Two

Then I made the decision to return home.  Six months after I began my new job, I knew it wasn’t for me.  But I stayed.  I was devastated to realize that I didn’t want what I had put so much time, effort, and expense in obtaining.  Now what?  I felt lost.  I didn’t know what to do.  During my fourth and last year at my firm, I spent almost a month in Hawaii.  There, in peace and free to think, I made the decision to be a writer.

Dot Three

I mostly wandered for the next year.  Tried to find myself.  Meditated.  Explored.  I travelled.  I tried to start my own legal practice.  I kept getting thoughts that this was to be a period of rest and rejuvenation and that I wasn’t to worry about future income.

At one point, I asked God, “What is my destiny?”  I went over my past and asked why I had gone to law school and accepted employment at a corporate firm.  It hadn’t seemed to accomplish much.  The answer I received was that law school and the firm enabled me to return to California.  I wouldn’t have come any other way because I wanted to retain my income.  California was where I needed to be in order to be with my father during his last year of life, to resolve my differences with my family, and to move beyond where I was on a spiritual level.

I then asked, “Why did I start my estate planning business?  The answer was that I needed to get away from the firm.  I needed a reason to leave.  In addition, it was practical, as I would need to plan for the distribution of my own estate and my mother’s when she passed.

Reading this many years later made me realize that most of what appears externally is not the essence, the reality, the why of what is occurring.  If we could see the larger picture, we wouldn’t worry and become fearful and despondent.  We would know that all is for our good and everything will work out ok.

Continue reading