The Direction of Intention

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Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I am 18 years old and all I’ve ever wanted to be is an artist, a painter. I am in my first year of college and I am dismayed to discover that my art classes bore me. I can barely sit still. I don’t know why, this makes no sense to me, I feel as if I am suffocating every time I go to class. And, I can’t stay away from the theatre. I’m there everyday. I take the class available to a non-major. I audition and play minor roles in plays.

The next year I jump to a new school and a new degree. I am studying acting and know deep down that I will never be an actor – there is something more beyond this study but I can’t see it (yet) and I expend massive amounts of energy and anxiety – again – wondering what I am doing and hiding the feeling that I am pursuing something without knowing what it is. It is an imperative yet makes no sense; I’m chasing a phantom and feel like I am lying to my teachers because I’m still under the illusion that most people know what they want and have a clear sight on what it is (so, I feel like I am lacking somehow).

In the next several years I direct plays, I consult with schools, I paint paintings, I coach and for a while these feel like different actions – energy in opposition. I tell myself that when I am in rehearsal I’m not painting so I’m not growing. And, if I am painting, I am not growing as a director. I am at war within myself and neither side can win.

The surrender comes when I recognize that painting and directing and consulting are forms; and beneath the form there is an intention. Alan calls this a soul mission – when you recognize that what is yours-to-do can take many shapes. I am a particularly adept chameleon; mine-to-do is to open stories for people, to illuminate paths to self-knowledge (it is what an artist does).

Ana-the-wise busted my chops the other day when I was whining that I didn’t know what form I wanted my work to take. I said, “What do I want to create for myself?” She said, “You will always be confused until you ask a different question. It is not what you want to create for yourself, the question is what do you want to bring to this world.”

Amen. And bring it!

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