Four Hundred Weeks of Pathwalking
Four hundred weeks of Pathwalking – the passage of time can be surreal.
Just before the start of 2012, I determined that I needed to write more. One way to do so would be to blog weekly. My blog website, The Ramblings of the Titanium Don, had been up since April of 2010. From time to time I was posting there, but not regularly.
Determined to make a New Years’ Action, rather than a flabby, easily disregarded resolution, I chose to blog weekly. On January 2, 2012, I wrote and published the first of a series I would call Pathwalking. I did so once a week all month, and as of the end of January made it every Wednesday.
This post marks the 400th Pathwalking article. Every single week for 7.7 years I have created a post about choosing my own path, deciding what it is I desire from life, and steps I would take along the way to make it happen.
During this time I have learned a great deal about myself. I know more about how I think, what and how I tend to feel, and the intentions of my actions. Pathwalking has really explored for me the process of conscious reality creation.
This has been more than just blogging weekly all this time. It has become a philosophy and lifestyle I employ to live the most full, satisfying, and fulfilling life that I can. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its ups and downs, and that it’s not often challenging – but so far, my life since I began writing Pathwalking all those years ago has changed considerably for the better.
Developing a philosophy
Not long into Pathwalking on a regular basis, it occurred to me that I had developed a philosophy. It isn’t Buddhism, Absurdism, Daoism, or Naturalism, but it is my study of the fundamental questions of life, the universe, and everything.
What that means to me is that I see that by making a conscious choice about what you want to do with your life and deciding on the paths to walk therein, you find answers. Sure, you will also find more questions – but isn’t that a big part of what life is all about?
That’s the thing. As I have practiced walking my own path in this life, I have found new questions. I have also found answers, but one of the greatest discoveries I have found is this: Life is constantly in motion. You get to decide if you will stand against the stream or swim.
That is where Pathwalking comes in. Recognizing that, as Yoda aptly puts it, “Always in motion is the future,” it occurred to me that this means life could be construed as a series of pathways. Every choice made, and not made, takes you down a path. Some are long, some are short, some reach a dead end, and some could go on and on and on. Further, most paths include curves, obstacles, switch-backs, intersections, crossroads, and any other metaphor you can apply along that line.
The point is that even when you don’t choose you tend to be on a path or paths. So why not choose what you desire to do? Why settle for surviving when you are capable of thriving?
The benefits of Pathwalking
To be fair, this has not been the smoothest, easiest way to live. Hell, there have been plenty of times it kind of sucked. But for the most part, over the last 7.7 years, I have lived with more passion, conviction, and mindfulness than I recall experiencing in a long time.
Not every choice I have made has been great. Some of my paths have proven more challenging than others. I have been walking my own path with interruptions and other fits and starts, but living life rather than letting life live me has been worthwhile.
I long ago stated that nothing worth having is easy. This takes effort, and focus. Being in the here-and-now takes practice. When I get it right, it’s amazing what I find. It feels like I can move mountains.
Since I began Pathwalking I have pursued my dream of writing full-time; gotten into the best relationships of my life; created new and strong friendships with amazing people; have been feeling more genuine about being the best me that I can be.
The most important thing I am working on, still, is that it is the journey that matters. Sure, the goal at the end is important because it provides you with direction. But the journey is rich and full in-and-of-itself and produces many unexpected results. As you walk any given path matters come upon you that can change everything, and you can learn lots and lots.
The journey happens in the now. Being in the now, being present and mindful of the now, is how consciousness creates reality, and you live the fullest, most interesting, and amazing life you can.
Why the now is so important?
To put this plainly, you cannot live in the past or the future. You can learn from the past and set goals for the future, but you can only live in the now.
I have, for 400 weeks, examined this, as well as so many other issues. Conscious reality creation requires you to be present and mindful of your thoughts and feelings. This only occurs in the now.
Your subconscious mind is vast and complex. Imagine that your mind is a house. Your subconscious is the foundation of the house. Then your consciousness, your thoughts, and feelings, are the basement and possibly the ground floor of that house. Your actions, and how you present yourself to the world is the type of house people will see, and whether it is run-down or well-kept.
A better analogy, frankly, might be a tree. Your subconscious is the root system, and it can stretch far, far deeper and wider than the tree is high above the ground. The subconscious contains both passive and active matters and does the vast majority of the walking along any given path.
That is, of course, unless you become conscious of the path. This is where Pathwalking comes in. But to be conscious of the path, you need to be aware of your thoughts and feelings, here and now.
Only in this moment, in the now, can you BE mindful. This is where the difference between selecting your path and simply plodding down the trail thoughtlessly comes into play. This is why the now is so very important to the path you may choose.
Continuing on the path
At the conclusion of the first year of Pathwalking, I decided to take it into a second year. When I reached the 104th post, I chose to continue for another year. After the third year, it was easy to keep going.
Four-hundred weeks later I am still writing about this journey, still sharing my philosophy, sharing ideas and processes, and continuing along the way. I am pretty sure that I have repeated myself a couple of times, reused a keyphrase more than once, and shared the same idea I had been working with all along.
By the same token, odds are I have changed my process along the way, changed from one notion to a different one, and maybe even changed my mind about how things happen. That’s to be expected, because as I grow and change and learn new things, old ideas that may have seemed brilliant and right I now know don’t work. Or simply are not right for me.
This is something I really wish more people took to heart. Life does not remain in one place. Opinions based on old data can and should be changed when new data disproves them.
But don’t take my word for it. My journey is unique to me. Your journey will be unique to you. I share the idea of Pathwalking and my experiences with it because you can walk a path of YOUR choosing, too. But why reinvent the wheel when I can provide you with insights, tools, techniques, and ideas you can use to make your journey.
Four hundred weeks of Pathwalking. This continues to be an incredible experience. I wonder what the next 400 weeks might bring?
Do you practice Pathwalking or some other philosophy?
This is the four-hundredth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas for, and my personal experiences with, walking along the path of life to consciously create reality. I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. I also desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing works, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.
Please take a moment to subscribe to my mailing list. Fill in the info and click the submit button below and receive your free eBook. Thank you!
Follow me here!
