The InsiderOne Daily Report


  Friday, March 9, 2001

I Am Floating

InsiderOne's Michael Goldberg writes: I am living in the present, with a focus on the future — taking in what I see around me, looking forward. I'm doing my best to leave the past behind — that's the plan. There's the plan, and there's what happens. Life usually doesn't conform to any plan. Something from the past suddenly comes into view, or rather, comes crashing into you, momentarily obscuring the present. It intervenes. It gets in the way, like a big boulder in the living room. My immediate reaction, my knee-jerk impulse, is to strike out. "Hey!" I wanna shout. " Why have you taken that thing that was mine? Why have you destroyed it?" This, I have learned, does no good. It's a waste of time. So I don't shout, I walk away. I am learning that it may be better to sit and feel the pain, and that lashing out doesn't really accomplish anything. I am letting go, trusting the universe. I am floating. Sometimes, my feet don't even touch the ground. I am letting go. The impulse is to control everything. To play God. I am letting go. I don't need to play god anymore; I'm collaborating on the future with new and old friends. We are very imperfect human beings. We make mistakes. I make mistakes. I keep walking. Or I get on my bicycle and ride. It's easier than I imagined. No one knows better than I that I am not perfect. And so, just as I think I'm getting it, just as I feel I'm balancing so well on that hot wire between the creative and the predictable, between the new idea and some age-old wisdom, I fall. Down, down, down, and into the net. I have to trust that there is a net. So far, there is a net. I've never really cared what people think of what I do, or what I say. I would certainly not be here if I hadn't learned, somehow, to trust my intuition, to take that chance. Still, this feels like new territory, like I'm taking new chances, risking a lot. Risking that you'll read this and laugh. Actually, I hope you read this and laugh. You can laugh at me, you can laugh at yourself, you can laugh at life. We're all pretty funny, as we busy ourselves with all these very important things. In the end, when we're dust and spirit, how big a big shot we were (or weren't) won't mean a whole lot. I heard a story the other day. In this story, a man has died and now he's going to heaven. You can't bring your gold to heaven, but the man wants to, so he talks to God and God tells him he'll make an exception. So the man fills a suitcase with gold bricks. When he gets to heaven, St. Peter asks him what's in the suitcase. "Gold." St. Peter tells the man that bringing gold to heaven isn't allowed. "Oh, but God made a special exception for me," says the man. St. Peter reluctantly tells the man he can enter, but first he asks to look inside the suitcase, which he does. As the man closes the suitcase, St. Peter says to him, "How come you brought pathway stones?" Sometimes I sleep soundly at night now. I'm living in the present, with both eyes on the future, and I'm beginning to get it.

The InsiderOne Daily Report appears weekdays at 9 AM PST, except when it doesn't.



Michael Goldberg is the president of insiderone.net. He founded Addicted To Noise in 1994.



copyright (c) 2000, 2001 michael goldberg | design by elephantcloud