Day 18 : Answer this question and discover your hope

Don’t underestimate this. It’s big.

Think of the person you most respect. Think of the words ‘revere’ and ‘awe’ and then think of the person you know who comes closest to those words. If you’re a bit intimidated by them, that’s good, too.

Now pretend this person asks you this question, and they ask it in a way that you know they expect an answer:

“What do you really want?”

Quick, what’s your answer?

You may hear that question as “What do you want to see happen?” or “What do you want to be?” or “What do you want to do?” Whatever. No rules.

Do you have an answer? It’s OK if you don’t right now. But you should feel the pressure that this person you respect expects an answer at some point.

Now pretend that you’re hesitating (maybe you are), and you feel the person waiting for an answer, and so you stall, and you ask, “Why do you want to know?”

Pretend you hear them say,

“Because I want to know if you’re paying attention”

And you stammer and say, “Paying attention to what"?”

And they say, “Paying attention to how I’ve been working in your life. Paying attention to how I’ve formed you and given you unique experiences, desires, and motivations. You’ve had a lot of success and failure and frustrations. You’ve gone a lot of different directions. Your priorities have grown and changed. Things have narrowed down a bit for you. I want to know if you’re paying attention to the common river running through you, or if you think all this is just random.”

And you say, “gulp,” and they say, “That’s not an answer.”

And you say, “Well if I knew (money, time, forgiveness, distance, skill, education, access, credentials, permission, etc) wasn’t an issue…”

And they interrupt, “I’m not asking you an ‘if’ question. I’m asking,

“What do you really want"?

* * *

The answer to this question is not something you decide, or make up. It’s something you discover.

It’s a starting point question. Doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Just means you need to answer to get started.

Well?

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You can start at the beginning of 31 Days of Scary Hope: encouragement to go from IS to COULD BE -- HERE. To receive each day delivered to your email inbox, or to subscribe in a reader, click HERE.

Comments

[Donna]

THANK YOU GARY!!!

[Abbie]

I WANT to discover it. But I'm not sure how. I can feel it just under the surface.