Walt Hampton, J.D.

Creating the Work & Life You LOVE

What’s Next?
February 4, 2010

We’re asked the question all the time.  At the gym.  At work.  In the grocery store. When is the next adventure?  What’s next?

And, of course, there is a next already planned.  It was planned well before the last one was even started!

It’s necessary for me.  I absolutely need to have a project on the drawing board. Something to anticipate.  Something to look forward to.  I feel hemmed in without it.

I happened upon a great life partner.  Ann is of a similar ilk.  We have bike rides and marathons and diving projects and all sorts or adventure travels up our sleeves, not to mention language courses and writing projects and tango lessons. We look forward to what’s next.

The wonderful lyrics of the classic Cy Coleman song “The Best Is Yet To Come” run through our wedding album.  We believe that.

And yet we try – we really try – to appreciate every moment that is in front of us.

John Lennon said, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans.”

The house needs cleaning.  The snow needs shoveling.  The homework needs attending to.  The laundry is in a heap.  The bills from the last adventure are still on the desk.  A child or a co-worker  needs to connect.  Friendships are born, relationships are nurtured, life is lived in these moments. (Sometimes they seem more like trenches). They are the only moments that we really have.

In these moments there is such beauty and grace if we only take the time to see.  And if we miss these moments, we miss much of what life really is.

In last night’s Tango class our teacher said, “Dance this step as if it is the only one you will ever dance. And then if you’re still around, take the next step.”

How hard that is.

I am haunted – as I know my own father was – by the lyrics of the old Harry Chapin ballad Cat’s In The Cradle.  Do I put off the opportunity to be present to what is here before me now for the expectation of what may or may not be?

Chapin’s refrain: “We’ll get together then.  We’ll have a good time then.” The eternal “then” that never becomes now.

Jack Kornfield in his beautiful spiritual treatise A Path With Heart says, “That which we were running around the world seeking is here at our door.  Over and over again we learn this simplicity.”

The heart of all Buddhist teaching is this:  Be here now.

And yet, oh so paradoxically,  to be here now requires the seeking of what’s next. I’ve quoted Eliot before:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

The journeys out are also journeys in.  And in the journeys we not only seek fresh adventure and new experience but also the wisdom and the patience to be present to what is before us every day.

The Buddha taught The Middle Way.  A dear friend says balance is the key.  I suspect they’re both right.

Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,

Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before–”
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!

The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.

As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

– May Sarton

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

DOWNLOAD your FREE BOOK!

The-3-steps-to-living-an-inspired-life

DOWNLOAD Your Free E-Book NOW! Click Below And Get Going!

Click on the button for your copy of journeys!

Journeys-On-The-Edge

You’ll Get A Signed Copy!

Click on the button for your copy of my brand new book “The power principles of time mastery!”

The Power Principles of Time Mastery

You’ll Get A Signed Copy!

REGISTER HERE

Free Online Training Workshop

Thanks for signing in to the workshop!