The Power Of A Question

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin nnA few years ago we met a wise and gutsy 23-year-old named Sara who flat out knocked our socks off.nnWhy? nnWell, to borrow a phrase, she's taking 'the road less traveled'. nnA bright and articulate young woman, Sara was accepted into a very prestigious college she felt would jettison her into a great career and life. Just a few months in she started to feel like her dream school wasn’t the right place for her. nnRather than blow the feeling off and stick with the more comfortable ‘sure thing’, she started looking around and asking questions - of herself and of people she respected and admired.nnAnd she fought the urge to choose a direction - any direction - just to get out of the discomfort of ‘I don’t know’ and get on with it – whatever ‘it’ was. nnThen, someone turned the tables and asked her a question - the question as it turned out: a question that helped her begin to tune into her WHY – her internal compass - and point herself in the direction of a soulfullfilling life she loves.nn'What gives your life real meaning?'nnSarah didn’t know the answer to that question, but she instantly knew she needed to. She also knew that staying somewhere that didn’t feel meaningful likely wasn’t where she was going to find it.nnSo, she left school, traveling as far away as South Africa, and learned to let her life show her both the answer and the WAY to make a living doing only what she loves. Along the way she found that listening to the inner call unfailingly lights her up and lights her path. nnAfter hearing her story, we looked at each other and wondered what life would’ve been like if we’d been asked the same question.nnMaybe you’re doing the same right now, like any and all chance to get in the game of your life has long since passed you by.nnThen we realized we had, it just happened a decade or two later when the ante to get in seemed a whole lot higher: kids, a mortgage, ‘needing’ to know what tomorrow looks like - each year loaded with a bevy of perfectly logical and justifiable reasons to pass, fold and take ourselves out.nnBut there’s an old saying that pretty much sums up how this works – whether you’re 18 or 81: inch by inch, life’s a cynch – yard by yard it gets real hard.nnYoung or old – encumbered by the choices of years or seemingly footloose and fancy free – the choice to walk your own way always seems to be the riskier choice. But in the end, not walking your own WAY – led by your own WHY - becomes the greatest, and most costly, gamble of all.nnFor you. And for us all.nnHere’s a couple of SoulFullFilled questions you can use to guide your way: n1. What is it that gives your life meaning, purpose, power, propulsion?nn2. Do you know that everyone comes built with a ‘portfolio of passions’ rather than a single, stand-alone, love? nn3. What are the ‘sure things’ in your life that might be keeping you from playing – or from playing full out? nn4. What reasonable justifications do you hear yourself use to convince yourself to keep doing the same old ‘sure things’ and call it being responsible?nn5. What are your children – assuming you have children – learning from you: how to live fully alive and responsible to the call of purpose and passion, or how to be merely responsibly ‘grown up’ (what is that, anyway)? n