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It seems few of us could remember how old we were when we first heard it… but hear it we all did. It went something like this. “Remember: Stop, Look, and Listen - pay attention!” In that moment most of us got it that listening was a really important thing for us to do. But… in the hustle and bustle of being a child with so much to explore and so much to do, stopping, looking, and listening was likely the farthest thing from our minds.
For much of my life there has been a secret belief agonizingly gnawing away in the hidden recesses of my mind that “If only I can get – ‘this’. If only I can achieve ‘that’, then - then I would be safe, then I would be satisfied, then I would be fulfilled… then I would really be happy. The unvarnished truth is that there is nothing to get, nothing to achieve, in fact, no place at all to land – life is a journey. And on this journey we have a choice.
“I know there must be more than this,” I thought as I stood on the windswept shores of the wintery Great Lakes. Looking back at the city where I had become a successful international entrepreneur, I felt emptiness, a deep longing. In all my attaining I had missed something very fundamental. I didn’t know what it was but I knew there must be more than all these toys, all the external trappings of an outwardly “successful” life. Yes – there were moments of happiness but the deep inner joy that I somehow knew was possible did not seem to be here.