When going left is right
We live in a society that celebrates “sound,” “rational” and “logical” decision-making. So, which do you trust when your brilliance – your highest potential, whom you were always meant to be – calls you in the opposite direction?
Three weeks ago, a dear friend announced the death of his mother.
I instantly felt in my spirit that I was to be by their side - in France - for the week.
And, almost as instantly, I was pounded by 50ish rational reasons (on repeat) why it made absolutely no sense to go, like:
“I’m being irresponsible”
“It’s selfish and self-indulgent”
“The flight is too expensive” (If you think plane tickets have gotten wildly expensive, try buying an unscheduled next-day flight to Europe.)
“I have too many scheduled obligations with
A week of client meetings
A 4-day trip to Alabama that weekend
“I’ll lose quite a bit of money from the reservations made in Alabama”
“I didn’t fly to France for the funeral of my great-uncle last week; it makes no sense to head there for ‘just’ a friend and his mother”
And so was the hours-long tug-o-war between my unwavering spirit and the tornado of “rational, logical” thoughts.
Being the good little rational engineer, it is HARD to go against a lifetime of praise and recognition for “good, rational decision making” to allow my spirit to lead. (And I recognize that resisting a trip to Paris can sound ridiculous to some.)
It is our rationality and logic that most often keeps us away from our brilliance.
We strive to do what we’ve constructed as “right” instead of trusting our alignment with our highest selves, which is always pulling us towards whom we were always meant to be.
While it’s too soon to measure the impact of this recent trip to Paris, I see the gifts that unfolded after I followed that insane voice that nudged me, while I was comfortable in my corporate job, to “go to prison” almost nine years ago, or that then seeded the idea of organizing a TEDx event inside Donovan prison. My life has been immeasurably transformed by those two completely irrational decisions.
You have a choice: Alignment with our brilliance – our highest potential – can feel rationally wrong. Have the courage to take that leap of faith to follow that intuition to go left when all your thoughts are screaming for you to go right. What you deem as “right” is a constructed concept; mold it to what actually serves you and have the impact you’ve always ached to have.