I've been thinking "what if life is like the game show let's make a deal?" and our journey is the game and Monty Hall is God. Let's say you get to what you think is the bonus round and Monty asks you to pick a door and you pick door #3. and, what if when door #3 is opened and the prize you won isn't exactly what you were expecting...maybe it wasn't the BIG prize they taunted you with, but, it was the prize you picked and that's what you went home with? and, so, your life (the prize) isn't all you had hoped for....and you spend your life wondering about door one and door two....or maybe you let that go back when you made your choice, but, now, because of the ever changing canvas that is life, you are revisiting past choices and you're wondering, 'why didn't I pick door #2? Did I miss an opportunity? Did I short change myself out of fear? Immaturity?" I am finding that there are a lot of people wondering about their past choices, some wondering back 20 years or more, some only to 2007 when we could no longer look away from the economic crisis.
A friend's marriage is ending....she is stepping away from a life she's known for 20+ years...and as she moves outward, forward, she is reconnecting with people she left behind when she got married. And, yet, while she is moving forward, she finds herself looking back at her life before marriage and examining what propelled her into that relationship and away from others she had back then. This has been a huge source of inspiration for me, about looking back while trying to move forward...my friend seems to be navigating this back and forward, push and pull with grace, letting herself feel, reach out like she didn't in the past and she's finding herself. Both the girl she was - who she wanted to be - and the woman she's become and still becoming. What has called to me has been her rather fearless search for 'why did I pick door #3 and not door #1? and if I had picked either of the other doors, what would my life have been like?' And, what comes up for me is living with regret or rather making the effort to not live with regret. What if she had picked a different door and a relationship she had back then had been the one she stayed with, but, it did not turn out to the the BIG prize any more than the choice she did make. Perhaps Monty Hall had a different plan and she was Divinely guided to pick door #3 so that she could get to where she is today and so that she could be the woman she is today, mature enough to reconnect with one of those past relationships and be prepared for what that relationship has in store for her? And, so, living with the regret of picking door #3 does not add to the forward motion of life and how we're suppsed to get to the REAL bonus round....the one that we couldn't have known was our destiny until now, when we are worn smooth with a brilliant polish, able to shine our true light. And, more than that use our own light to see more clearly what our choices are and make those choices consciously, making 'the deal' with maturity.
