Here’s my entry in response to today’s tarot inspired journal writing prompt.

The Wheel of Fortune

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The question for today is, “Am I creating the opportunities I need right now?” I suppose the secondary follow up question to that is, “Do I know how to do that?”

To answer the second question I can say I partially know how to do this well. I am getting better at identifying what it is I need in any particular moment. That’s the first step in figuring out what really needs to be done, right? Like, how do you set realistic and fulfilling goals or even ask someone for help if you don’t even know what it is you need?

So for me it’s that second question I’m still working on. I can’t create the opportunities to get needs met if I’m failing to identifying or misidentifying what it is I need.

The other problem that I’m having that I don’t think anyone ever likes to admit is when I not really being authentic with myself or others about my needs. This is when I know exactly what it is but for one reason or another I hold back on it. Sometimes I feel I don’t deserve it. Sometimes there’s a fear around it of some kind. I know I can’t be the only one that struggles with this.

I know that for me more often that not it’s not a matter of the opportunities not existing in my life. Because I know they’re there. It’s that either I’m not looking for them or I’m not acting upon them.

You know a few years back I went to this workshop and the guy teaching it described what he called “The Hall of Stupid” and said it’s like people are wandering around in this hallway full of doors and even though none of the doors are locked, nobody is able to turn the knobs to open them. You know it’s like trying to pull open a push door even with the sign right there on it. Eventually, people figure out how to open these doors and leave that hallway, but some people take longer to figure out those doors. Some never manage to leave that hallway.

Sometimes I think my hang ups are just like that. The Hall of Stupid. Pulling on that push door and expecting it to open. Which never works. At some point it just clicks and your brain is finally like, “Oh yeah, duh!” and deactivates its stupid script. And I often wonder why I end up back in that hallway. Or does life just have multiple versions of this hallway?

You’d think I’d be able to deactivate this “stupid script” at will. You’d think I’d be able to prevent it from activating at all. I’d like to. Very much. I don’t know how possible this is. Like, if it’s a matter of life just having multiple versions of “Halls of Stupid” then does each set of doors have a different method of operation? Like are some automated doors? While others are push? Other still are pull? Maybe this is why some of us in stuck in a particular hallway? What if all the hallways you had ever been in before were nothing but automated doors and then one day you hit this messed up hallway with a set of doors that requires you to turn the knob, push in the door, and slide it to the side? How long would it take for you to figure that out? How do you mitigate or prepare for something like that? Can you even possibly control something like that? I don’t think anyone can.

But I do know that what I can control is how much effort I’m putting into setting up meaningful and fulfilling opportunities for myself. Opportunities to experience joy. Opportunities to experience well being. Opportunities to experience peace. Opportunities to be authentic and vulnerable with those that matter in my life.

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