Progress, Not Perfection

“Perhaps what matters in our life’s development is not that we reach a goal of perfection buth that we expand our field of awareness as much as possible as we follow the path of our problems.  Perhaps what matters is not so much the reaching of a goal but the conscious journey on the labyrinthine path.” Edward Whitmont, The Symbolic Quest, pg. 307

Somewhere during the last two years I ran across the expression that “our problems are but the toys in the sand box.” While I can’t trace the source, this snappy little quote has stuck to me like a burr nestled into a sock after a walk in a meadow.

As of late my challenge has been to gain acceptance with the behavioral patterns of avoidance that can seemingly turn every goal on it head and lead me astray from my intentions.

From another perspective, these changes in direction can be seen as a needed compensation for the gradual unfolding of wholeness.  How can one know one’s tendency to avoid if not through the consciousness of its occurrence.  So back and forth, side to side, in and out, and back and forth again.

But to follow the winding path mindfully, now that opens up something of completely a different order.  Fused into the experience of the here and now is a real game changer.  In many ways the goal I thought I was seeking is no longer around the next corner.  It joins me in the shared unfolding.  Regardless of direction, being present, …let’s call it presence, yes?  Presence is the sought after, after all…