Asking the hard questions

It is my last morning in Turkey and I’m debating what to write. Do I write about my experience, what I’ve learned, the pros and cons of this trip? Or do I choose another topic that has been on my mind? In thinking about this a little more, I don’t want to confine myself to any set schedule, topic, or theme and just let it happen. Again, I want to allow myself to have some creative freedom to explore more about writing and even more so about myself.

So with that, that leads me into this train of thought about reflection. Can you honestly say you have deeply reflected all aspects of your life? Have you taken the time to really sit down and contemplate where you’ve been, where you are now and the possibility of where you are going? I would guess that a majority of people have not, and wonder why that is? Have we gotten so busy that we have lost sight of who we really are as people? I can only speak for myself but, I have realized that I have a hard time acknowledging my accomplishments or rather acknowledging that I have had accomplishments. It wasn’t until last month when I decided to take a trip to be by myself out in the wilderness that I started to go through this process of reflection and self-observation. That process was profound in a sense of me slowly down enough to take a step back and say… “wow, you’ve actually done a lot in the past 10 years… and goddamn that time has gone by fast.” Even with that experience of being alone, secluded from everyone else I still don’t feel like I got to the core of who I am. I did, however, uncover some new life lessons and reinforce some old ones which I had more or less forgotten or pushed to the back of my mind.

I have been diving deeper into teachings of meditation, philosophy, and breathing techniques to help keep me centered and present, but I wonder how far that can take you if you aren’t able to acknowledge your past which ultimately has brought you to where you are now. I believe that knowing who we are, like really knowing who we are, by asking hard questions about our core values, beliefs, priorities is the only way to bring peace to the past and then allow us to be fully present. I could be searching for clarity, but then again, do we ever really find it? Maybe this is part of the “process” of self-discovery that takes us down the rabbit hole. Not sure, but definitely something to think about.