swimming upstream

it seems that i never have a greater appreciation for conditioned behavior as when i am attempting to act in a way that is opposite of what my instincts tell me. i am most definitely in that time now as i am finding myself initially reacting to certain circumstances and situations in the way that i have learned to over many years. it is only when i ask myself additional questions that i realize that the initial reaction is based on conditioning grounded in a particular perspective on life -- a certain belief that my life's purpose should be ultimately about achieving certain goals.

you know those goals - marriage, family, career success, wealth, power, and so on. and the conditioning that comes with these goals is the more of these things you achieve in life the better your life will be. and by in large, we experience that not only is that perspective not necessarily true, it is most definitely not true in the same way for every person.

of all of those goals, i think the one that has been held up to be the most important in my life is marriage. finding your soul mate and living happily ever after has been the holy grail illusion i have been taught to aspire to if i ever hoped to have lasting love in my life. and so now i find myself in the place where i am questioning if that is true for me.

doing so, as is the case with the questioning of most societal norms, feels like the proverbial salmon swimming upstream. everything in our culture glorifies finding the "right" one. movies, tv shows, books, commercials, magazine ads, billboards all declare that our life's mission should be to find our one true love (they also tend to espouse the need for the other goals i listed but i can only contend with going against one societal norm at a time). and yet here i am thinking that this is a goal that i cannot continue to aspire to and remain sane -- particularly since i no longer trust the promise of life fulfillment from such a relationship.

here is the most challenging element of swimming upstream.  while those going with the flow at least have some idea of the destination they are attempting to reach and have plenty of company along the way, those of us heading in the opposite direction do so without a pre-determined locale in mind (we just trust that we'll know it when we reach it) and tend to have few sojourners to encourage us along the way (though there are plenty of critics in the downstream group).

and with that, yet again i am reminded of why i picked this particular title for this blog as a signifier of my hope and trust in the belief that it is indeed enough to be on your way. thanks jt.