Wrapping up a week in madness, I’ve reflected a lot on the ideas of creativity, transformation, and acceptance. Remaking ourselves and our lives takes courage. Some people may not understand what you’re doing or why or how. They might put us down in every way possible, and we might start to do the same to our own mad dreams. Don’t take your cue from them. Their words and actions, as much as they may hurt, have nothing to do with you. It is just an expression of them wrestling with their own demons and lost dreams that they didn’t follow. And the reasons for their choices don’t matter. They chose. Now you choose: Go down that road even though you know how it ends, and it doesn’t end well, or go in a new direction.
New directions can be frightening. We are leaving behind our history, our patterns, our expectations, and the impressions of others. Of course it’s mad to chart a new course. The old worn one is so much easier to travel. Be mad. I know it sounds so easy to say “let go”. No one tells us how painful that process can be. There’s a grieving, a mourning period. But on the other side of that grief, is light.
And here’s something else no one tells us: once we strike out on a new road, we don’t travel alone. Up ahead, just around the bend, there is someone new waiting, lots of someones waiting. They took off before we did in the same pursuit of something new and exciting, something that they feel passionately about. They are our new examples of how to be. We are both teacher and student, always. We learn and then we turn around and teach others through our example. That’s how it’s always been.
Yes, we’re here to take life by the horns, madness included, but we’re also here to give even more back. We’re here to be generous with our experience so that others may be encouraged and inspired to invest in their own mad dreams. That’s progress.
Christa Avampato 