“Whoa!! The plane is moving!!” the small boy exclaimed in the seat behind me as we jostled around in turbulence at 39k feet somewhere over the Pacific between Tokyo and Singapore. It was just “a quick 6 hour 15 minute flight” as the pilot put it. I agreed with him after the 12 hour flight from Salt Lake City to Tokyo. It is all relative!
Back to the boy’s quote about the plane moving. It made me smile and think about how your life is always moving but sometimes you don’t realize it until an event happens that jostles you up a bit. “Holy cow, I just turned fifty (or forty or ‘x’) and I haven’t done x,y, or z yet!” Or you lose someone close to you and realize that none of us get out of this life alive.
If your internalGPS is working well then you don’t need the jostling to periodically stop and ask, “Am I going where I want to go?” or “Am I living the life I want to live?”
Sometimes it is not easy to live the life you are called to live. I just spent 35.5 hours traveling half way around the globe: 21.5 in the air and 14 in four airports to get from Phoenix to Bali in the south pacific. It would be much easier to go to the tropical islands of Hawaii but my internalGPS has to go a lot further to be satisfied. Sometimes this is very frustrating. But, I have learned to give in and follow my internalGPS because it is what is right for me. Most likely it is completely different from what is right for you. Don’t follow anyone else’s GPS; your internalGPS is yours and yours alone.
Over the next week or so I’ll be writing from Bali. My posts will be based on something I see or hear that will relate back to using your internalGPS. Hopefully you will enjoy the ride!
Where has your internalGPS taken you that was not necessarily easy? Please post a comment.
photo credit: Ma1974, By the way, this photo is credited since I used it from the creative commons on Flikr. I tried for way too long to download a photo from my i-phone of the Singapore airport (where I spent a long 8 hour layover) but finally gave up. I can not e-mail from my i-phone since the AT&T rates for data and calling internationally are practically criminal. From now on I’ll use my digit camera for photos instead of my i-phone!
I can’t wait to hear about your trip! I hope it’s a fulfilling experience. With your help and guidance I have been pursuing my dream of going to medical school and practicing as a doctor. While this is definitely not the easiest path, you helped me see that it is my purposeful path. It is daunting to think of the 10-year flight (so to speak) that I will be on but I just try to take it one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time keeping in mind my final destination 🙂
Thanks for sharing Josephine! I thought of you when I wrote this too, not an easy path but clearly the right one!