All you need to do is show up.
But showing up is not just merely being physically present at some place at some time.
It means you are present, as in, you are paying attention to what’s here and now.
You are not reveling in or plagued by your past. You are not preoccupied with or daydreaming about the future.
You just show up, wholly, to the moment. Everyday.
When you’re paying attention to the present, that also means you are open and ready to receive. Receive answers to your questions. Answers come to you when you are ready. Trying to forcefully find it at the time and occasion of your choosing, through willpower, computing and analyzing, only shows you unreliable paths. To truly walk the right path, you have to let go of expectations in terms of which path that is, and open yourself up, be vulnerable to the present.
That’s not to say that you have to lose sight of the desired experience, the feeling you want to have at the end. The only thing you need to let go of is your idea of how you’re going to get it. That’s why it’s more important to ask the right questions, than to find the right answers. The quality of the answer depends on the quality of the questions. Our job is to ask and be open. That’s not hard, once you understand it.
All you need to do is show up. Progress sometimes hides itself. Progress sometimes shows up in the form of temporary backtracking. There is no need to wring out every ounce of productivity out of your time. If you show up, that’s already a win. All you have to do is to keep showing up. Day after day after day.
It is not much to ask. Truly, anybody can do it. All your desires and dreams. Ask how you can get them, but don’t try to find the answer. Simply show up and ask the questions.
This is the lesson I’m learning these days. I can be stubborn or too dense to learn some things. I am sharing it with you, so that hopefully it’ll take you less time than I did to come to this. I made life to be harder than it needs to be. Masters always make it look easy. If you are struggling, that means there are expectations you are forcing, lessons you are not learning. All that thinking, wondering, worrying, obsessing hold you back instead of moving you forward.
All you need to do is to show up. Stand on the start line with the intent to run the race. Then you listen, you wait for the “go” sign. You’ll only notice it when you’re paying attention. When you are ready.
So let’s show up. Again and again and again.