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Tonight I was watching a Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode with my wife.  In this particular episode, the main character, Captain Sisko, receives a vision from this alien-spiritual entities and makes some seemingly crazy decisions, ones that go against his role as a military officer and a father.

It was a ultra-dramatic episode and my wife and I chuckled at how overblown it felt to us, but I also have to admit, I was distinctly uncomfortable watching the episode.

Then I realized that this notion of following “a vision” is rather similar to some of the things I’ve done.

I’m an intuitive and spiritual person and very much believe in the notions like faith and vision, and I’ve made some big decisions based on them.  But the really uncomfortable thing about such notions is that it’s awfully hard to explain to others, at least in our current “science” based climate, why you’re doing it.  Compared to more logical, concrete reasons, they seem so frail and possibly delusional.  Think about it.  When someone says s/he is doing something because “God told me so” — especially if it’s something that seems completely against common sense — wouldn’t you have a hard time buying into that?  I certainly would.

Yet, that’s what I did earlier this year and my wife supported me on my decision, and as a result, we turned thousands of dollars of savings into a debt of about the same size.  And what do I have to show for it, so far?  Not nothing, but pretty little.  Well, actually there were many good things that came out of that decision, but it also seems like I could have produced the same results without spending that much money, too.

It all comes down to results, it seems.  If your crazy leap of faith results in some tangible outcome, then you can claim the title of a Visionary.  But if you don’t, then you’re a Lunatic, a naïve romantic who should learn the lesson and grow up.

Money isn’t everything in life, and really, the journey since then has brought me to a rather good place.  But I am still stuck with this sense that what I came here to do, I haven’t accomplished yet.  I think I know what my mission is, but I can’t be even certain of that.  And I keep making decisions trying to put me in a place where I can do it (now I realize that the whole notion of first having to “put me in a place where I can do it” may have been the problem, but that’s beside the point) but since I haven’t produced the result, I feel like a complete lunatic.  And I hear a whisper in my head going “what the hell are you doing, Ari?  Grow up.  Stop dreaming.”  Perhaps my mission is to live to see a day when I no longer hear that whisper of doubt.

Interestingly, it is the last night of 2009.  Another year has gone by.  I produced some results, I hope they are getting me closer to accomplishing My Mission…. but I can’t tell yet.  But one thing is for sure:

I have less time than I did a year ago.

Whatever it is that I need to do, it’s urgent.  I will have to wonder about whether I’m a Visionary or a Lunatic, later.

Here I am into the second week of my self-employment/entrepreneurship.

I’ve been amazed so far by how quickly things are changing inside me.  Just in one week, I have come up with a handful of ideas of services I can offer, and I have concrete strategies of how to promote them.  Not that everything will work right off the bat, but I can’t wait to try them out.  I’ll probably know immediately whether they’re going to work or not — but not before.

This last week was about feeling the full extent of my fears, the resistance of my system.  As with other changes I’ve gone through in life, I tend to run through these hard and fast — I feel like I’m going to die when I’m in the midst, but the intensity of the experience helps me move stuff out of my system quickly.

Now that I’m working my fears out, I feel that a new person is emerging.  This is the man I always thought that I could be — intuitive, bold, imaginative, confident.

Particularly, my intuition continues to amaze me.  It’s as if my decision to tune into it has some how uncaged a huge winged bird.  I’m sensing things more strongly, and it’s become crystal clear what my intuitions are telling me.  That doesn’t mean that I was able to follow it every single decision — my fear still remains, and my habit of old, conventional, Justify It Before Commiting thinking leads me astray.  But every single time I did that, I got into trouble for it.

New depth of information are coming to me, and they are like going from an old black and white TV to modern high definition TV.  The signals have so much strength, so much detail, that I can sit here and explore the world that’s opening up to me and obtain information previously unavailable.  And the scary part is, I don’t know why or how.  It’s like I am discovering a new ESP or something.  I can tell in each instance what the right decision is, and I can also tell a lot about what’s going to happen from that.  And all this happens almost instantly.

I am still leery and untrusting of this new-found antenna, so I am not as good at acting upon it.  But when I am through this transition, this is going to turn into something very potent and powerful.

Before the end of March, my endeavors are going to find more than just directions — more like tractions.  The more boldly and decisively I act, the quicker it’s going to happen.  And things are going to simply take off, in more ways than one, though I don’t know precisely in what ways.

There, I said it.  That’s my vision.  It’s scary to say something like that in public — because I could be wrong.   But I don’t think I will be.

Come along, and I’ll share with you what I’m turning into.

I’ve been under much stress this week. Over the weekend I decided to live true to my intuition and since then I’ve been dealing with the full-on terror (that’s what it feels like to me!) of what it’s like to make decisions without knowing the reasons why.

I tell you, I never knew that I relied so much on knowing how my actions are justified.

On Monday, I got a very strong sense that I needed to buy a new digital camera for my business.  Not just a point-and-shoot, but a digital SLR.

What?

I’m going to be in MUSIC business, you know.

So I kept questioning myself.  I began looking on eBay but what I saw didn’t comfort me — they cost more than what I feel comfortable to pay for a piece of equipment I don’t know why I need it.

But the voice inside my head was telling me not to delay, to act now.  I said, no, I don’t wanna.

By last night, I was starting to feel a knot in my stomach.  I felt a sickness coming on. Only after 2 days of resiting my intuition.

So I finally gave in.  Last night I placed an order on an older Canon.

As soon as I hit the order button — my deed was done, I can’t take it back any more — I immediately felt a tremendous sense of relief.  I may not be able to tell you the reason why, but I know I made the right decision. It’s possible that in 3 months I’m going to sell it, but buying it now was something I needed to do.

I also know that had I continued resisting my intuition, I would be home sick today.

I firmly believe that an illness is an indication of a deeper inbalance in your system — not just physical, but mental and spiritual as well.  A person who’s self-actualized, having the time of his/her life, doesn’t get sick.  But a person who’s suppressing deeper problems also doesn’t get sick — well, they do, but not sick enough to make them stop and reflect.  And the latter is very dangerous.  I have seen people who were known to be healthy go-getters all the sudden develop major illnesses like cancer and die young.

Bob Proctor says in the movie the Secret that disease is dis-ease, your body not at ease.

I may have increased my family’s financial risk last night, but my body is more at ease today. That’s gotta be an indication of something.