Your heart's desire

I spent the weekend driving to Sweden and back for a personal erand. During the drive, I had a chance to listen to some audio books that were long overdue to listen to. One by John Berglund titled "The emotional language", and one by Randi B Noyes titled "The art of leading yourself".

Berglund's five hour "seminar" gives great insight into the human psyche from a professional point of view. There is no doubt Berglund know what he's talking about, and the emotional system he describes is quite logical. I'll quickly sum it up like this:

Something happens, which has a meaning, which generates an emotion, which is inside of you and leads you to make a decision, which is then turned into action.

There are no negative emotions, as the word "negative" implies that "it should not have been this way". Of course it should be this way - if something blocks your way, you SHOULD feel anger, the adrenaline gives you energy to overcome the obstacle. It is not negative, it is a difficult and/or painful emotion. Therefore, if you do not want to be angry because something happened, and you can not change what happened (we are all late for the past), you must change the meaning.

Noyes has a life experience approach. Basically, she does not have Berglund's professional background, though she does make valid points about, among many things, following your heart's desire. I'm glad I listened to Berglund first, so I could avoid certain caveats that would otherwise have gone by undetected. The one question that started to bug me was "if you learned that you have one year left to live, and there was no shortage of money, what would you do? Would you keep your job?"

Interestingly, no. While I thoroughly enjoy my job, I have to admit that there is one set of things I love to plan, to try to find time for, and try to put into life: It's my travel/bicycling/writing projects. According to Noyes, then, this is what I should be doing for a living. Alas, today, it's something I spend money to be able to do, it does not actually bring any money in.

It should, however. Just by putting together a photo book from Paambi, I could theoretically get something off the ground before I start the longer writing session. I also see how I want to dive into some of the adventures uncovered during my trips and research various aspects. Who is that guy who died by the road in France? What is it about this tiny village that makes me want to return? How about staying at this unknown place for a couple of weeks to paint, take photographs and get to know people?

And as Berglund says, there is no "but", there is "and". You can't say something true and then negate it with another truth. They are both truth.

Therefore, I would love to do all this AND my current situation of being employed means I'm not able to do as much of this as I would like to. AND I have a mortgage to pay and a family to feed. If I can make each trip/project self-funding, I guess that would be an important first step.