I remember when my dad died. It will be 34 years in July, and I still think about him every day.

At the time of his death, I was convinced that I could not survive without him. That I would fail at taking care of my mom. That my life would never be the same.

I was devastated.

I had just finished my first year of law school. I was working in a law firm in Chicago, and I was spending as much time as I could at my mom’s home in western Illinois, helping her to create a new life without her lifelong love. It was hard, and I was suffering. A lot.

But when I was back at work, most of the time at least, I seemed okay. It was disconcerting, actually, how well I was doing.

What I noticed then is that when I wasn’t thinking about my dad, I was actually doing well.

I could have seen then that reality, my reality anyway, is only what I’m thinking about, what I am aware of in the moment, and that it is constantly in flux.

What I saw instead was this idea that I should think about my dad more, that I could be a good son, to him and my mother, by suffering more. That I was a bad son by not suffering.

I was on a retreat recently where I was doing a lot of work with the roles that my parents had played, with the examples that they had shown me. I started talking about how many possibilities I had not seen because of that. And I said that despite that, I knew they were doing their best.

And one of the teachers said, “You don’t have to protect your parents right now. You just need to take care of you.”

And it hit me in that moment, so many years after my father’s death, how often I want people to feel better. Even if I feel worse in the process.

But if other people, even people close to me, are suffering, it doesn’t help them or me to think I should suffer, too.

Suffering doesn’t help me do my job better or become a better person.

I saw, and continue to see, that a lot of my “rules” about life are simply not true. And certainly not solid.

I saw, and continue to see, that my own “reality” is no more solid or unchanging than the clouds in the sky.

That much of the joy in life is in the seeing of that constantly shifting creation.

I’ve seen that, more and more deeply, for the last 30 plus years. The most dramatically realization, so far at least, was last July, on my father’s birthday, when the idea of “me,” simply disappeared.

“I” came back a few hours later, but I take that “I” a lot less seriously now.

When I see that I’m making up my life, making up potential futures, and then either being excited about or scared of the futures I just made up, my relationship with myself and my life completely changes.

I can see that all I am ever doing is creating. I can create a life where I have to suffer. Or I can create something different.

Can you see that space?

What are you wanting to create from there? What’s wanting to emerge?

Are you married to the same person today that you were yesterday?

Are you in the same house?

Are you in the same job, or do you own the same business?

For me, those things that look constant are what I have called my identity.

I’ve been a lawyer, a consultant, an executive, a coach. Often for years at a time.

I chose to be married to one person. Then I chose to be married to a different one.

Yet “I” am none of those things. They just are what has arisen in a series of momentary decisions that I was often unconscious of.

When I assume I am an identity, life can seem stagnant. A burden. A series of obligations that I have taken on and now must fulfill.

Sometimes to others, but often only to the “shoulds” that I have made up for myself.

I have a “career.” I am a “husband,” a “father.” And I seem to be all the thoughts that I have taken on about those made up things.

I am stuck in a world of thinking that I have created.

But if I see that I am whatever is thinking those things, not the things themselves, something shifts.

In any moment, I can choose differently. Often, I will not, but sometimes, suddenly, a new choice, a different choice, will be obvious.

Every day, my wife and I choose to continue to be with each other. Knowing that it is at least possible that one day we may not choose that.

It is the arising of the choice in each moment that is special, that makes life precious.

When I see that I am the thinker, the chooser, the creator, everything shifts, even if nothing on the “outside” changes.

The fact that my experience is being created anew in every moment means there is the freedom, in every moment, to have a different experience. In fact, a different experience in every moment is inevitable.

What shifts for you when you see that?

What might you choose differently now, just because you see you can?

I was talking with one of my clients about his frustrations with a new employer. There’s a lot he has been able to do in the new role. He has built a team and team culture that he is proud of. He is beginning to see some changes in the broader organization due to his efforts.

But there are still a lot of frustrations with things that he doesn’t feel like he can change.

When I asked him what the “wrong reasons” were, he was pretty clear with me–

Money.

Stability and security.

Not having to make another move.

Having enough for college for the kids, his own retirement, and some extra just to do fun things with.

When I asked him with the “right reasons” were, he was at a bit of a loss.

He doesn’t know what he actually wants. He knows he likes building a team. He likes winning. He likes a lot of the relationships he has built.

But other than that, he seemed to be at a loss. Happy with how the organization has treated him, frustrated that he is not yet making the impact that he would like. Feeling like a bit of a loser while the organization seems to see him as a winner.

Now it could be that for you, money and security are the right reasons. It could be those are the right reasons for him, and he just hasn’t realized it yet. It could be that something else will emerge, something related to his desire to have an impact, or something else entirely.

But the biggest question that most of my clients struggle with is, “What do I want?”

Not what is expected of me.

Not what will make me look good.

But what do I actually want?

Just because I want it?

When you are able to see that, and create from that place, everything will change for you.

What do you want? Just because you want it?

I was on a retreat with a business owner last week, and he joked that he had seen this on a sign and was going to order it for his office.

I can relate. Because for most of my life, I thought the most useful thing that I could do was think about things. And rethink, and rethink. Even at 4:00 in the morning I was ruminating about the pros and cons of a decision I needed to make.

But then I started to notice something. That after all this rumination, I would often have an insight. Out of the blue. Something that didn’t appear in my analysis, but that I knew somehow, deep in my body, my soul, was true.

And I started asking myself, what if I followed that, rather than the analysis?

Now don’t get me wrong, I would still do the analysis. For example, when I moved from a law firm to a consulting firm, I looked at the pay packages, I thought about partnership, all those things. And I made the move, comfortably that the pay at least looked comparable.

Turned out I was totally wrong about that. I probably would have made a lot more had I stayed in a law firm.

But the move was still the right one, because it really wasn’t about the money. I still made enough over the years, and I did work that resonated a lot more deeply for me.

I found over time that I was generally happier when I chose based on what my body was telling me, my innate sense of knowing, than what a spreadsheet might say.

I still resist, though. I’m all too quick to dismiss something as impractical. I did that with coaching, at least at first. When I was laid off in 2016, I did “know” I didn’t want to go back to a big company as an employee again.

But I thought I would be a consultant, an advisor based on my prior technical expertise. I didn’t even realize that I believed all the statistics about 90 percent of coaches making less than $20,000 a year. That I assumed I could not make what I was making before as a full time coach.

It was fear disguised as logic. As practicality.

It took a good friend saying, “Consulting firm? But you’re so passionate about coaching.”

What she said to me rang true. I knew I had to try.

It was hard, but it also proved true.

What are you overthinking right now? And when you look behind all that, what do you already know to be true?