What’s next?

I  just attended a yoga retreat with Rod Stryker (www.parayoga.com).  Awesome by the way.  Seriously, good stuff.  One of the things he said  is that we have one question that we continue to ask throughout our lives.  That one question is, “What’s next?”

Remember when you were younger and everyone asked you where you are going to college?  Then where are you going to work?  When are you getting married?  When are you going to have kids? 

Every day we ask this question…you wake up, you get your coffee, then you ask, “What’s next?” You keep asking this throughout the day as events unfold. 

As I thought more about this, I realized there are two ways you can look at this.  One way is to recognize that if we are always asking, “What’s next?” we are not living in the moment.  We are not present where we are because we are wrapped up in where we are going.  This is not good.

However, the other way to look at it is to think about our own personal growth.  When we ask “What’s next?” we are engaged and wanting to learn and grow and change.  We are excited about the possibilities before us. 

Even if we are in a place in our lives where things are good and we feel content, should we just stop?  Should we not thinking about what’s next?  I don’t think so. 

Asking “What’s next?” helps us avoid being stagnant and tired and depressed.  We remain actively SEEKING.  This does not mean that what we are doing now is not good but maybe that it has been so good, it has enlightened us and engaged us to such a degree that we want more. 

How will we answer the question, “What’s next?” Will we listen to our internal voice?  Will we answer the question from the authentic wisdom that resides in our own hearts?  Will our inner wisdom have a chance against the external noise of our world?  Can we hear our internal voice?  Do we even know we have one? 

Yes, this question will endure throughout our lives.  Eventually, we will look back and realize that the way we answered that question becomes the description of how we lived.  

Let’s not be nonchalant about what’s next.  Take some time to listen to your heart.  The answer to that question will become the story of your life. 

What will your story be? 

What’s next?

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

                                                                                      -Robert Frost, Mountain Interval, 1920