On the Minister's Mind
with Rev. Laine
Isn’t it disheartening when you go out to dinner and you confidently order your meal, then look over at your companion’s choice and wish you could go back and start with a different order? Their dinner just looks way more delicious than yours! So, if you’re like me, you resign yourself and go ahead to eat your dinner, while secretly, or even overtly, coveting theirs! It happens.
So, what prevents us from calling the waiter over and placing a new order? Maybe it is the cost of paying for a second meal. Maybe it is the resistance to admitting you made a bad choice. Maybe it is the realization that you can come back another day and have what they are having. So many possible reasons, but, the bottom line is, you COULD do it.
A dinner menu selection is a small example of the very human experience we all have of feeling stuck with a choice that we made, wishing we could choose again. And, often, the same barriers to choosing a new meal are the ones that prevent us from choosing a new anything else. Think about it – a new job, a new college major, a new house, a new relationship, a new identity, a new direction in life – all of those things are changeable, but it means we have to let go of one thing to start over and choose again.
American author and philosopher, Guy Finley wrote – “Nothing in the universe can stop you from letting go and starting over.”
Do you find that to be true in your own life? If your desire for change grows big enough, nothing can stop you from starting over, unless you give something the power to do that. It is yours to decide.
In the month of March, we are exploring the idea of opening ourselves up to new things and new ways of being. Is your highest-self desirous of something bigger and brighter? What are you allowing to hold you in a place you no longer wish to be? Have you outgrown something that you realize you are clinging to for reasons that escape you?
Change is what sustains life, because growth is inevitable. Maybe it is time to place a new order, but first, really consider all the possibilities because they are all on your menu. It is easy to go for the tried and true choice, but maybe you are ready for a new dish! What do you think?