It was day one. My first real job. I was finally out in the real world ready to join the adult working class in a job like what my father had spent his life doing, and what I had been preparing for the last few years. This is who I was going to be and everything seemed to be moving forward smoothly . . . and then I went for lunch.
On the main flour of this huge government office building, at exactly the strike of noon, everyone arrived at the cafeteria for their allotted 30 minutes of refreshment. I stepped off the elevator and looked up at the scene before me and all I could hear in my mind was the mooing of cows. At first I let out a little giggle, and then the terror set in. I said to myself, "Are you serious? I can't do this for the rest of my life."
It was an instantaneous moment of clarity and a turning point for me. Shocking, crushing, but valuable. And I want to take a moment here and accentuate the "for me" part of that sentence. I know that for some these positions and lifestyles are a perfect fit, but for me it was a metaphorical slap in the face. Here I thought I had made all the right decisions and done all the right things, and in that moment I felt like I was in a herd where, once again, I didn't belong.
I know we have all had these moments. Standing at the alter knowing you don't want to get married. Pursuing a career that doesn't excite you. Following the beliefs and actions of a group just so you belong somewhere. Buying into the assumed "tried and true" goals of society. Logic can be saying to you, "just go along with what everyone else is doing, it will be so much simpler, why make it more difficult for yourself?" But there's a part of you that 'knows'. These moments are oh-so-valuable. Within them are the secrets to Who We Really Are.
LOP is trusting the knowing that we know.