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?
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