Practicing Living Each Day Into the Potential of Tomorrow

It is easy for us to assume spiritual life is about deep, cosmic, overarching truths.

Some of us are intimidated by how we understand spiritual life. It all seems too much to grasp, too amorphous for us to think about seriously. Other people see spiritual life as an essential element of a balanced approach to all of life. They may not understand everything, but they hold onto certain key truths. There are people who refuse to acknowledge spiritual life even exists at all. They believe in what their senses tell them, in what they have experienced themselves.

There seems to be a wide gulf between our experience each day and what we expect from spiritual life.

Living Each Day into the Potential of Tomorrow

We are challenged to talk about spiritual life in practical terms. It is hard enough to think about infinity or eternity and even more difficult to see ourselves there. The more we try to understand and explain spiritual life, the more cosmic it sounds, even to us.

In fact, spiritual life is much more practical than it is cosmic and unattainable. There is no chasm between everyday life and spiritual life.

It is easy for us to compare ourselves to our impossible expectations and decide we are not very spiritual. Our experiences give us very clear ideas of where we spend our days. There seem to be only the most vague, most conceptual notions of where we want to go. We cannot see a path which will take us from where we are to where we believe we should be.

Plenty of people will give us simple, digestible programs to find spiritual life. There are many different outlines of the seven, or nine, or twelve objectives we need to implement to move forward. Each framework seems to contain pieces of the truth and many of them can be helpful. None of them is the final answer.

Each of us is the bud of a uniquely beautiful flower. We decide for ourselves how and when we will open ourselves to display the striking colors within us. We may not know where or for how long we will blossom.

Our First Question

We follow a path which begins with our asking Why?

Like toddlers discovering the world around them, we need to know the reasons for things. Our questions are not so much Why is the sky blue? but Why do we do what we do? What makes us the way we are?

Asking Why? takes us below the surface of life across which we often skim. We want to go deeper. We refuse to take That’s the way it is. for an answer.

Our sacred path is a journey of exploration and discovery. We seek to understand, to recognize, to appreciate, to know who we really are. Our quest is to discover the core values which make us our deepest true selves.

Some of us begin exploring early, while others put it off as long as we can. Almost all of us get there sooner or later. Our curiosity about ourselves draws us deeper.

Our Second Question

The path which begins with Why? often leads us to ask Where? The key fact is our Where? is based in, and grows out of, our Why?

Some of us want to get going, to head off in a direction, and let our Why? emerge along the way. That may feel like a more proactive approach, but we can end up somewhere we do not want to go. When we have a more intimate idea of who we are we can begin to explore where we want to go.

As we grow more familiar, more comfortable with who we are, with our Why? we may find new answers to Where? I have known people who assumed they would head in certain directions. They built their lives and educations to support them. After they had built some momentum in that direction they learned more about their true selves. They came to see they needed to change directions.

They made the mistake of putting their Where? ahead of their Why?

Living into Our Potential Each Day

Like inspired athletes, we begin with who we are. The core values which inspire us are the reasons we continue pushing ourselves. Our practice each day shows us who we are and why we are doing what we do. We are not competing with other people, not looking for revenge or retribution. Our focus is on bringing out the best in ourselves each day, building a more intimate relationship with who we are. The better acquainted we become to our best selves, the more we share those selves with other people.

As we work today to put our values into practice they become more real, more tangible to us. Each day we change our own perception of spiritual life as theoretical or philosophical. We practice spiritual life and it becomes more recognizable in everyday life.

Spiritual life becomes more familiar and less conceptual for us each day. It is not about what we think or our opinions on academic questions. Spiritual life is how we live, putting our values into practice.

As we practice remembering our Why? new Where? potential is born in us. We share our Why? with the people around us and connect to people who share our values. Together we work to practice our shared Why? in ways and places we never expected.

We practice living each day into the potential of tomorrow. New potential reveals itself to us every day.

Buds Bursting Into Color

We may have spent the winter resting and dormant. Now it is spring, and we gather our strength to push our way into bloom. The power to burst into color is within us; that is why we are here. We are ready. Where will we go?

How does your Where? grow out of your Why?

When will you put your core values into practice today?

[Image by mike from aus]

Greg Richardson is a spiritual life mentor and leadership coach in Southern California. He is a recovering attorney and university professor, and a lay Oblate with New Camaldoli Hermitage near Big Sur, California.  Greg’s website is StrategicMonk.com, and his email address is StrategicMonk@gmail.com.