Hi Celes, having been a sleepwalker all my life, I awoke and realized my purpose

in life. I know what my purpose is, I know what my goals are. I know what I *sho
uld* do.
But I fear to step out. I fear to lose everything I have now, even though it cou
ld or could not turn out better.
How do I address this fear? Stevens
Dear Stevens, thanks for your question It s absolutely great that you already hav
e full clarity of your purpose and your goals. This clarity is what s going to bri
ng you through a long way later on.
However, right now you have something that s blockading you from your dreams. And
that s fear. While it s possible there are several aspects of fear involved, such as
fear of change, fear of loss, fear of the unknown, what comes through most stro
ngly is the fear of loss.
When there is a fear of loss, it signals a form of attachment to the item that i
s at risk of being lost. The fear of loss has caused many to freeze into a mode
of inaction in their lives today. People have grown attached to the things in th
eir lives they have come to have. Things like their career, their status, their
salary, their lifestyle, etc. To pursue something different would possibly mean
relinquishing all of these things they have come to know. Because of this fear o
f loss, some people choose to put their dreams perpetually on hold.
However, this attachment is illogical and comes about as a byproduct of being to
o entrenched in our physical world.
The reason why it s illogical is because everything in our lives, except our consc
iousness, is impermanent. This includes everything in the physical world: from o
ur wealth, our salary, our material possessions, our status, our careers, our pr
operty, our physical bodies. We were born into this world as ourselves, with our
consciousness. When we die, we will lose everything and bring with us only our
consciousness.
[I have written about attachment before in the context of material possessions,
which you can read in the article Materialism Breeds Unhappiness.]
The full understanding and realization of this fact can result in quite a powerf
ul shift in our minds. Suddenly, it doesn t matter what we have in our lives, as m
uch as how we are living it.
Instead of concerning ourselves with what we have, the important question to ask
will be Am I living my life to the fullest? Am I living my purpose, my passion
and my dreams? Am I living my life in the best manner possible? Am I living my l
ife in a way which I will stand true to even the day I die?
When I first realized this a few years ago, it resulted in a total paradigm shif
t. I suddenly realized all these structures I was focusing on creating in terms
of career, wealth, possessions, status, etc were meaningless. They formed a nice
, candy fort which I could proudly exhibit and keep building upon as I grow olde
r, but for what some 40, 50 years? That s about it. After that when I die, they wo
uld just crumble and disintegrate. They were not things I could take with me bey
ond death.
This was what drove me to pursue a life of higher purpose and meaning. When I de
cided to quit my job last year in Oct 08, I wasn t concerned with the lucrative pay
check I was relinquishing. I wasn t thinking about the attractive career track I
was giving up. I wasn t thinking about all the material goods and wealth I could b
e accumulating by staying on.
All I was thinking was how I would be wasting my life away if I continued doing
something that s not my passion. All the time and energy I would be wasting on acq
uiring different worldly possessions which were not going to last forever anyway
. When I looked at my life in the broadest spectrum, beyond life and death, it w
as starkly clear that I needed to be pursuing my passion full-time. Everything e
lse just didn t matter at all.
The bottom line is this If you are not living your passion, then you really have
nothing to lose.
Ever since then I started pursuing my purpose full-time, life has been incredibl
e. I m serious. I m living my best life ever yet, and I just know that everything is
going to be even better and better from here on. And I ve just scrapped the surfa
ce of what s in-store for me. There s just SO much more just waiting to be uncovered
and unveiled that I can t even begin to imagine.
Think about the day when you are going to die. Would you rather look back at hav
ing spent your life holding on to things which you can t carry with you after deat
h or look back at how you have passionately and fervently lived out your dreams?
Start by releasing your attachment to the things in your life. That s when you wil
l start making your best decisions for yourself and your life, devoid of ego and
fear.