The hope and dream for many is that once they figure out what their path/calling/soul purpose is, things will become clear, the clouds will part, the path will become smooth, everything will make sense, and the decisions will become obvious. Which is the case, but like sex and comedy, it’s all in the timing.
Some people, when they come to a point where they are looking for their path and they find that answer, it’s the culmination of tons of work, years of confusion and sifting through the randomness of events, trying to figure out something, anything that will make it make sense. Figuring out their soul purpose is the reward for all the hard work and the path ahead of them, whether smooth or not, is smooth sailing by comparison and they are grateful for it and energized to dig into a life that is about who they truly are and what they can do.
In indigenous cultures those who have walked the path before you will be there to guide you through it. So while things seem random and while we’re not able to see the big picture because we don’t even have all the pieces to the puzzle, at least there is someone who knows what the picture is supposed to be and so can guide you in the right direction. But with urbanization and modernization we have lost this community and so we go through the process of becoming with no map, no guide, no picture to aid us.
Which makes it even more frustrating and sometimes agonizing when the journey isn’t smooth. What happens when we find our path and choose to follow it, but the hard work, the randomness, the acquiring of skills and experiences, the tempering of our mettle, hasn’t yet even begun? What happens if our soul purpose is to unfold even more of ourselves that we ever have before? What if the path we are on calls us to do more, be more, than we ever expected? And what if that requires us to deal with an ever increasing knowledge of our “otherness”, our inability to fit within the norms of a culture who is not making this choice? What if the side effects of becoming seem to separate us from the world instead of thrusting us into it? What about that place between here and there, between our old community and the new, between old self and new identity, between competent at what we new and awkward, naive, and blundering at the new?
Just because it’s your soul path doesn’t mean it will be easy. It just means it will be completely fulfilling, right, and utterly you. The smooth sailing is ahead, but first you have to learn how to sail.
