Posts Tagged faith

The Uncertain Path

Posted by Adam Ainbinder in Goals, Life on June 12, 2009

UncertaintySo i know what you’re thinking. Uncertain path, must be about being alone, about sadness, about the unknown. Well I’ve been trying to remain optimistic this entire week. I’ve had some good news, some bad news, and through it all, I’ve tried to find the good. And it’s been awesome. What a great week!

But what I want to write about tonight is the uncertain path and what it means. To me, the uncertain path is the future. It can be hours from now, or years. It doesn’t matter.

Uncertainty can take many forms. In the short term, you may not know what your boss is going to give you to do at work, if there will be traffic, what you’re going to eat tonight. Long term, you may not know if you’re going to have kids, die at 40, get an educational degree. Uncertainty surrounds us, constantly. I have often feared this. And this week, I’ve come to understand this a bit more.

For me, uncertainty is scary for a few reasons:

  1. Lack of faith – if I had faith, changing circumstances would most likely occur for a reason. Without faith, is there purpose or reason to things
  2. Lack of control – if I can’t control something, then how do I get comfortable with it

The more I’ve thought about this, the more I’ve realized that i struggle with uncertainty because of my lack of faith. I don’t mean religion either, I mean trust in a future outcome because there is something greater than ourselves at work in the world (as I wrote about here).When I think about control, I’ve learned based on my recent divorce that I’m not in control. Some things yes, but when it comes to life, I can only do so much. So I keep coming back to faith…

So how do you believe and trust in something good so that anxiety about uncertainty goes away? I know it may not completely go away, but I mean minimize it as much as possible. I’ve read several books that have really caught my attention about faith (new earth, manifest your destiny), but i still struggle in practice.

Faith may come naturally to people who have grown up with it. But what do I do when I know I want it, but know it will not be through religion? That is my struggle this year. My goal is to let go, believe that some things may be meant to be, and just do my best in those things that are within my control.

Is this confusing or do others also experience this? Comments are much appreciated :)

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life trifecta – answering the question, who am i?

Posted by Adam Ainbinder in Life on March 12, 2009

sunset6i want to thank @raymondpirouz for his thoughts on my blog post last night via twitter. he had some great insights, but really what I took from him the most was what he referred to as the triangle of life: passion, love, and faith. For faith, i could also think of this as hope, as my previous post from shawshank referred to.

think about that for a moment. i mean literally, stop reading, breathe, close your eyes, and think about those three words: passion, love and hope. do you find those three things prevalent in your life? If so, do you feel your purpose or do you question it?

i look at my life, and i have hope. I have love. And well, i think I’m missing passion. i wrote one of my first posts about being lost when i quit golf back in 1999. i was more passionate than you could imagine back then. I loved golf, and in turn, I loved life.

I practiced when the sun was out, before school, after school, in my room when it was dark, studying books on the sport, practicing in my dorm hallway at school when it was raining outside. I was truly passionate, and each day, I was so happy to wake up and play that game. it carried forward through my life. i was a happier person back then…

quitting left a void. And i became diligent about business, studying and learning so I could be as good as I could be, but there is a big difference between diligence and passion. Passion has an underlying happiness under it. I believe with passion, combined with love, I feel like I could die tomorrow and I would be happy. Passion makes you appreciate everything around you. When I was playing golf, I could appreciate the feeling of outdoors, the sprinkles of rain, the sun, the grass, visualizing a shot, the beauty that lies within a golf course and the camaraderie of playing with fellow golfers and teammates.

now I sit here, 10 years later, making a good living, loving unconditionally, enjoying work, developing friendships, but missing that piece that drives me. I loved @chathri’s comment about being attached to material things. ive felt that recently, and i’m finally aware of how unhealthy it is.  @raymondpirouz also talked about this today referring to CEO pay and how ridiculous is it for someone to need millions of dollars. what world do we live in when that becomes what most people (as opposed to everyone) want?

if we’re driven by money, i believe we end up unhappy. in the end, money doesn’t get us connection, love, passion. but for some reason, it seems to buy temprorary happiness. but when that is gone, what do you have? who are u?

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