I read The Art of Possibility a few years ago. It’s an odd book..I’m not sure that I get it entirely. But I like the way it’s sprinkled with little lessons, like this one below. It’s very much a “just because” read with no apology given for it’s odd format.
Anyway. The lesson:
Four young men sit by the bedside of their dying father. The old man, with his last breath, tells them there is a huge treasure buried in the family fields. The sons crowd around him crying, “Where, where?” but it is too late.
The day after the funeral and for many days to come, the young men go out with their picks and shovels and turn the soil, digging deeply into the ground from one end of the each field to the other. They find nothing and, bitterly disappointed, abandon the search.
The next season the farm has its best harvest ever.
This theme is going through my life at the moment. I spoke about it at my book launch. I shared that the most shit-full experiences in life always turn out to be a gift. Likewise, the stuff you dig down into – often out of shit-full necessity – so often becomes something fruitful in and of itself.
Like my autoimmune disease. It was certainly shit-full. Still is. I spent almost a year unable to work or walk (about four years ago). Which forced me to go over my life and dig down deep…and to blog about it…because I was forced to (I struggled to work in any other environment). My blog then became my livelihood and it has reaped a bountiful harvest in so many ways for me.
Of course, I didn’t foresee this at the time. But deep down I had faith… in something… and I kept tilling.
I hope that if you’re going through some shit-fullness that this might come of some comfort. Keep tilling…xx
