Step by Step.
On big future plans, the mind's need to control what isn't yet – and the future that arises from the now, step by step.
By day I was creating, step by step, and it was enough. By night my mind forged the five-year version: what this work would become, how it would grow, what I would need to get right for it to happen. Lying awake with a roadmap is still lying awake.
The letter's answer is almost comically simple: keep doing what you're doing. You have time. What will be is not yet – the future is not built in the head, it arises from the now, one step at a time. Planning, the letter says flatly, is control. "The Art of Letting Go" makes the same point from the other side: letting go isn't giving up, it's releasing control without slipping into passivity.
If your mind is currently three steps ahead of your life, this one is for you.
Dear traveler,
Right now there is only one thing you need to know, again and again: Keep doing what you're doing! Because your feeling is right. You are doing it right, intuitively. You are following your inner call. And as you know by now: that is all you need to do. That is enough.
And remind yourself, again and again: you have time. So go step by step. One thing after another. Because in this lightness of being it sometimes happens that our mind forges big plans for the future, and we lose ourselves in them.
What will be is not yet. And what was is no more. The only thing that exists is the present moment. And out of the present moment, life unfolds. Step by step. Moment by moment. Completely naturally. Completely intuitively. Our inner voice gives us turnings, doors to new possibilities that only appear along the way.
Do you remember: creating is a personal healing process, and along the way we change. When we dwell in our head and in the future, we make plans without walking the changes along the way. Planning is not intuitive. Planning is control.
In that moment it is time to come back to the present moment. To let go. To take on an openness without intention or expectation – to hear the inner voice. And to be in the moment. In the truth. And to create out of this moment – letting the future arise from the now – instead of controlling it in the head.
Thank you for being here.
If something in these letters stayed with you, take it along – think about it, write your own answer, or just let it sit.
And if not today, that's okay too. There's no rush.
Until next time,
– Jan