Never Ready

I cannot tell you how many times I have fallen prey to the “I don’t feel ready” syndrome.  You know it.  The one where you think you need to feel ready before you take action?

…I often introduce my students to books and reading that is well beyond the normal textbook or school book style. The readings are not, in short, reviews of important books by world changing authors. Rather, I make my students read the original book by the original authors. For instance, I do not give my students a review of Nietzsche found in some “philosophy for dummies” book, but rather give them Nietzsche’s work itself. I let them know: “You are never ready to read this stuff. Do not demand of yourself immediate understanding. It will not happen.” You just need to jump off that cliff…take what you can get.

So many students have never been exposed or asked to do such difficult reading. I learned from a great mentor once that “one never begins when ready.” Or, you are never ready to begin. This is not because you will never “have your mind right” or because “you can never figure out the entire situation” before you begin, though this is certainly the case. Rather, you are “never ready to begin” because YOU ALWAYS ALREADY BEGUN. If you are alive, you have already begun to answer the long enduring question that is “your life.” In meeting any difficulty, you learn about where you are and not primarily about the nature of the difficulty.

You don’t have to wait until you are “ready”…It’s already happening. Now. …and now…now….and, now….yup, now too.

I’ve been accepting feelings of loneliness, lately. I’m longing for a connection that is extraordinary. I have been pursuing this, however, by turning to the external world for help. I have been making women responsible for scratching that connection “itch.” In so doing, I have put pressure on myself and them to perform. I am a needy bastard The result is that I’ve just not felt much connection from my interactions with women I am attracted to.

I wonder how much different life would be right now if I were doing what I loved to do? Or, more importantly, I loved what I am doing? I have major burnout from so many years of schooling. I have only 2 years remaining to finish and claim my PhD. Over 10 years in the making. And some part of myself, deep inside, wants to just say “fuck it.” Quit. And open a coffee shop in Spain, become a personal consultant, and teach part-time at a university. I love teaching. It is my passion. I feel the most power and connection when I teach.

It is almost as if I am waiting to “be done” in order to begin my life. But, and here is the point, you are never ready to begin. How I am now will be how I will be. Today becomes the context for tomorrow, as Lee Thayer once said in a seminar. You are never ready to begin because you have always already begun.

To push my edge of loneliness, thus means I have to go out and talk to women and push through those feelings of disconnection. There is no “trick” to this. Accept my loneliness and act to create the life I want. In such a case, my “actions” become the context for tomorrow. I will never be “ready” to connect with women, ever. Because I’ve already begun…I’ve jumped off…