...and that has made all the difference.

I came across this journal entry which I wrote in February of 2013. I am in awe of how my life has radically changed since this this time and I am now living this kind of lifestyle that I was pondering in my journal. I also know that it's part of my life's calling to express to the world (or anyone who cares to listen to me) the needed life balance between being and doing. Because the deep yet overlooked truth is that busyness does not always lead to frutifulness.

February 22, 2013 - Tonight as I was watching a movie, "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" I sensed something. At one point in the story, they were trying to find salmon fish to transport to the Yemen where there's barely any vegetation or water, never mind fish. So they couldn't find a country the was willing to donate the fish. However, they could purchase as many as they wanted from salmon farm harvesters where the salmon are raised for restaurants in confined farms and have never been free to swim. They weren't sure what the salmon would do if they were released into an unfamiliar country without the only boundaries they've ever known. But then the main character took a step of faith and said, "I believe that these fish would instinctively swim upstream even if they nor the parents ever have. It's in their DNA, it's part of who they are." And so when they did finally release them at first they swam with the current. But then one by one by one they turned around and swam upstream. You saw them jumping high out of the water over a dam. I felt like I was swimming and jumping with them; experiencing the freedom they felt of living instinctively from their true nature without constraints: free to swim and go against the current.

So this, in essence, is what I am seeking and have been all of my life. So how do I get out of what constrains me? What exactly is constraining me? What is in my DNA that will free me to swim against the current? Is it really possible to achieve on this side of eternity? Does it have to do with my deeply innate desire to just 'be' and not 'do'? To go against the current of the measure of success which s a resume of external achievements? To not find another "career" that would make me "happy" but to change my lifestyle so that I'm able to need less of an income so that I only need to work parttime which would give me more time to simply "just be"? Is this living an aimless life or one that is simply void of clutter? How do I live in a western culture without the western culture living in me?

Which reminds me of something read in a philosophy book: "if we are to find a new path we usually have to leave behind that which we know." And I think of the sentiments of the famous Robert Frost poem;

Two roads diverged in the woods and I,

I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.