All Things Worthwhile

Everything worthwhile takes time. Lasting contentment, master's degrees, cooking like Julia Childs, they all require a process to achieve. Healing and soberness take time, as well. Effort is required, and consistent effort is the shortest route, but we are human and easily distracted. Even from goals we think we really want.

We have learned there are no quick fixes that last, but we secretly wish there were. We've tried them, those quick-fix-elixirs, in our spiritual lives, in our business lives, in our most treasured relationships. We've taken the seminars and followed the guidelines and omitted the truth while looking off to the side. Yet, here we are, impatiently tapping our foot, smacking a backhand into our palm and imploring ourselves to "get there faster". Deep down we know we never will, unless we submit to the process our goals require~ patience, persistence and a heavy dose of accepting the foibles that join us along the way.

But if we look closely at our lives, we will see shining examples of where we have been patient and loving. We will see goals in process and we then have the opportunity to notice how good the process itself feels. We are not failures. We are, more accurately, huge successes in disguise to ourselves. We see we are already engaged in activities and relationships most worthwhile to our own deepest needs. We realize we have all it takes to begin and sustain the process for anything we deem worthwhile. And maybe, those seemingly important goals that keep our feet impatiently tapping are not so important after all. Relaxing our expectations and allowing natural rhythms to direct our efforts will reveal if, deep down, we feel the process itself is worthwhile. If the process is, so then is the goal.

A life well lived takes time. It also takes concentrated effort to sustain the values our hearts hold most high. We have all and we are all we will ever need to live the life we imagine. We set aside quick fixes and we settle into our own pace of traveling and stumbling and traveling again on the journey to all things worthwhile.