WHERE ARE YOU?

In some shopping malls, you’ll find these maps that give you a kind of “birds-eye view” of the different stores and places in the mall; and the different ways to get to them.

For example, these handy mall maps will tell you that the sports equipment store is next to the pet store, but not next to the office supply store (because, as the map happily tells you, the office supply store is across from the little stall that sells those giant pretzels).

Now, all of this is good and helpful – knowing where the stores are, and which “roads” get you to the store that you want to visit, is…well, yes, it’s good and helpful. But...

It’s not enough. There’s another missing piece of information that is absolutely, uncategorically, utterly essential.

You need to know where YOU are on the map. You need to find that blissful, even spiritual little dot that says “YOU ARE HERE.” With that little dot you can go ANYWHERE in the shopping mall; and you’ll always go towards your desired destination.

But without that little dot – and really, on a big shopping mall map it does seem like a small detail, right? – you’re merely “lucky” if you find your destination; and if you do, you’ll probably never be able to find it again (unless you keep getting lucky...which you won't).

Forrest Gump thought that “life was like a box of chocolates.” Okay, sure. Why not?

But I’d suggest a slightly more…urban version of this wisdom: life is like a shopping mall map.

There are places you want to go; and places you don’t. And once you know where YOU are, you can find your way towards these places/avoid these places.

So. That compels us to ask: WHERE ARE YOU?

Seriously. Right now. Where are you? No, I don’t mean physically – I don’t mean the city in which you live, or the country, or anything defined by some outer criteria. I mean INSIDE you. Where are you?

Are you tense? Fearsome? Resisting reality? Are you being nourished by some kind of inner complaining? Are you projecting yourself OUT of the present moment into the future, or thrusting yourself back into the past?

Or…are you simply WHERE YOU ARE. Are you inside your being; are you alert, aware, open, and co-existing with reality?

Remember: being aware and co-existing with reality DOES NOT mean that you become a passive vegetable who does nothing and cannot make positive change. In fact, just the opposite is true: ONLY when you are aware and co-existing with reality can you clearly and consciously SEE what needs to be done – and what you can do to help make that happen.

So from now on, as you go through life’s many situations – some tense, some pleasant, some positive, some not – always ask yourself: WHERE AM I?

Find – or rather, RE-FIND – yourself on your internal shopping mall map. And then happily go where you really need -- and really want -- to go.