When I listen, I learn

Charles Schulz penned, “Life is like a ten speed bike, most of us have gears we never use.”

I recently came across this quote in my stash of philosophies and low and behold it got inside my head and begged me to answer the question;

“Which gears in my life do I never use?”

I’d like to think I use all of life’s gears and that I never miss a step and that that is why I often feel like a gerbil running 24-7 on an exercise wheel.

Remarkably, I once again find myself so far out in left field with that sort of thinking that I suspect the only way I’m going to get back to first base is with a simple and direct instruction manual called “Life Gears for Dummies,” for which I am the perfect storybook character.

I know there are many gears in my life I don’t use enough, though none come to mind as I fold laundry with one hand, flip an egg in the cast iron pan with the other, type these words, and clean the toilet all at the same time.

Mark Nepo, a philosopher I highly respect, states “authenticity, the experience of truth, is our richest food and that without it we will freeze to death.”

It seems of late I have dwelled on those words too.

I don’t use my authenticity gear enough.

Sure, I give an authentic face to my relationships with my friends. Who they see is who I am. I don’t wear a mask nor do I pretend to be someone I am not.

But if I’m headed up “Honest Street” I’d have to admit I often ignore the heart of the woman I see in the mirror every morning—me. I don’t listen to my own truth.

In fact, I was pretty sure my personal authenticity and most assuredly my intuition gear were about to jump ship because I’d been fighting them so long in my Olympic “head versus heart way” that they were growing impatient with me.

But I was wrong.

I only can speak for myself when I say I think this soul bodyguard called intuition is at work in all my life in magical countless ways. 

This sage is, I believe, part of a very, very patient Universal Plan because when I do not follow my intuition, it just hangs around in the corners of my life while I peddle the wheel, until the next best opportunity arises in which to whisper to me again.

That whisper begs to be heard and stands out from reason and logic. Some things are true whether I believe them or not. Intuition is one of those things.

I have not yet done what it is I have been put here to do. This I know for sure and I know for sure what that thing is.

The Universe has whispered this to me in countless ways through people, places, and things since I was a young girl and still I have turned my heart away.

And then I walked into a bookstore in the city to kill some time. I wasn’t looking for it but I was quiet enough to hear it. That little whisper made me look down at a little orange, sunshine-embossed paperback by Paulo Coelho called “The Alchemist.”

Right place, right moment. Write on.