Pathwalking 46
While Pathwalking is a philosophy, Pathwalking is also the ultimate form of self help. Why? Because you and you alone are in control.
I know many people who turn to various self-help gurus to find ways to do what I’ve been talking about here every week for the past eleven and a half months. I myself have explored many of these, reading Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Bob Proctor’s You Were Born Rich, Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese?, and others. I have listened to audio books like Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, T Harv Eker’s Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, and more recently Tony Robbin’s Personal Power II. I follow Paulo Coelho’s blog, and take inspiration in most of his tales, though they are (largely) fiction.
To some degree, I am ashamed to admit to this. Why? Because I know many people who consider these people to be full of bullshit. Hokum. Bunk. And I suppose it could be argued that in composing my Pathwalking posts weekly, I am emulating them. Or worse, just parotting what I have learned in my own form.
The thing is, while I know a lot of people who consider these ‘self help’ or ‘new age’ or ‘crunchy-Hippy’ ideas to be nothing but self aggrandizing crap, I have come to see that, at the core, they are all getting at the same thing.
What do you really want? What does any of us truly desire from this life? The answer always comes down to this: Happiness. We all want to FEEL happy. THAT is the most driving force in our lives.
Why am I working at a job that pays poorly? Because apart from the pay, the job makes me happy. Conversely, why does my friend work at a job that pays astronomically high, and yet makes them miserable? Because that astronomical pay allows the friend to buy things that are intended to bring happiness. Why do we eat fattening foods? Why do we seek companions? Why do we turn to religion to explain the unexplained? Because when all is said and done, this will find us various forms of happiness.
Why do we turn to new age philosophies and self-help gurus? Because we are seeking happiness, and something they are sharing resonates with us. Maybe not the entire message, maybe not every aspect of what they are presenting…but there is a connection.
They all share specific themes. Mundane and daily practices like gratitude, asking non-self-degrading questions, affirmations, feeling behind corresponding thought, controlling our own emotions, making lists. They go on to share grander schemes, like the notion that consciousness creates reality, we are all seeking Happiness first and foremost, gratitude for what we have will allow us to gain more.
Pathwalking is my attempt to get at the core of these notions, and put into practice the universal, practical aspects of the ideas these people have put forward. Pathwalking is my way of saying that the best resource we have for anything we want is ourselves.
Pathwalking is not intended to be a new-age, self-help, crunchy-Hippy let’s-all-join-hands-and-sing kum-bah-ya thing. Pathwalking is a philosophy. My study and subsequent explanation of Pathwalking is my attempt to make sense of the things I have studied from a wide range of sources, and explain it both to myself, and to you.
Pathwalking is our birthright. We are all capable of choosing our destinies. We are all capable of taking matters into our own hands, and finding and following our own bliss. It is not a gimmick, there is no One True Way to walk the path, and there is no One True Path to walk.
Most importantly, my purpose is to remind myself, and to show you that there ARE paths to be found, to be explored, to walk, to run, and even to be avoided. We are only victims of circumstance if we allow ourselves to be. We are only beholden to those we allow to have that power. But in the end, when all is said and done, we make our own destiny.
This is the root of what the previously mentioned self help, new age, what-have-you authors and gurus are getting at. Their information, whether wisdom or folly, is a lesson in whatever form you take it in. But at the heart of their information, the notion is Pathwalking. Find your path. Make choices. Walk your path.
Who do you turn to outside of yourself for information/inspiration?
This is the forty-sixth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Thank you for joining me.
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