Your genius, whether it’s the part of you that exists nowhere else, the universe itself, or both at once, is quietly showing you what wants to be created through you.
This is another big philosophical claim, difficult, if not impossible, to prove except by simply experiencing it.
So put the book down again. Bring to mind something unresolved in your life: a decision you’re stuck on, a relationship you don’t know what to do with, a career shift you’ve been pondering for years.
Take ten more deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.
Let your mind settle.
Then simply ask: what’s the next right thing? Ask the universe itself. Ask the deepest knowing within you. Ask plainly, as if to a friend sitting right beside you who wants to help.
Don’t try to figure it out. Just wait.
Sometimes nothing comes. That’s OK. It may be a sign that the next right thing is to rest in the not knowing a little while longer.
But often, something does arise, as if you’ve received a transmission rather than coming up with it on your own. Or at least as if you first received a spark of inspiration, then built it into a fire. It may feel calm, clear, and obvious. It may feel unsettling, even scary, an invitation into the unknown. It may well be both at once.
That’s genius. It is your deepest knowing. And it is, at the same time, something much larger and more mysterious coming to your aid, showing you how to move through this next chapter of your one precious life, and what to create within it.
Next steps: tell me whether to apply the two 4-3 fixes, and whether you want me to trim the Chomsky and Lynch quotes. If you’d rather not paste 18 times, I can check whether I can connect to your WordPress site and create these as drafts.
This is an excerpt from my upcoming book The Antihero’s Journey: From Burnout to Real Contribution in Polycrisis Times. To read other excerpts, go here.
