They say that the journey of a thousand steps begins with just one. But what if you have fallen off the path and can't get back on or even worse can't find the right step to start. I feel lately like I am stuck somewhere in the middle of those two concepts. Like I can see a path that looks like something I use to be on but I can't seem to find the step to get started.
It's like the idea that I have started so many things in my life and now I just feel the confidence lacking to start something else or to even go back to something I have done many times before. So where does that leave me? Sitting at the bottom of the journey watching others race right by or standing still with my eyes closed wishing that someone would come by and push me in the right direction. Either way I'm not moving foward and I'm stuck standing still. Granted it is a stuck of my own doing but never the less it is still a stuck.
I started reading this book today that says that everyone has this one purpose for their life. This one thing that you do better than anyone else. This you-uniquness, I believe the author called it. And as I was reading this book I could feel that negative side that has me stuck saying, "Not you. There is nothing you do better than anyone else in this world. If there was one thing you were suppose to do in your life don't you think you would have found it by now?". All these negative comments were just swimming in my head and at the same time I could feel my heart crying back, "Please let me be wrong. Please let me see that one thing. Please let me find it.". So how do you find your one step when your head and your heart are in disagreement?
This may sound a little conceited but I have always felt like there is something special that I was meant to do. To star or write one of the best plays or movies of your time. To write that one masterpiece of fiction. To capture that perfect moment on film or to as least go down in history as having accomplished something. But I don't feel as though I've done any of those things or that any of them would appeal to me still at this stage in my life. It's funny how time and experience change your perspective on your life. When I was ten I wanted to do everything and thought I would. I remember wanting to live one year in every state in the US then write a book about the people and the culture of each one. I didn't realize I would have to be at least 60 (that is if I started at 10 not 18 or 23 when I finished school) when I wrote my book. No in my head I would be done by like 35 or 40; you know when I was old. But those ages are approaching faster then I like to admit and I'm back where I started and still looking for my journey.
I think the funnest part is that I do still on some level believe that I am destined for something great. Something that I was meant to do and it's like I feel it and I know it but I just can't figure out what it is. I think that is the most fustrating part. To sense it just beyond your reach but not be able to see it. How then are you suppose to take that first step? How do you even know what that first step is?
Maybe I'm over thinking it. Maybe it is just putting one foot in front of the other and continuing to walk until it starts to make sense and you can look both ways and see the place that your headed to and the place that you came from and then as you stand there you can see the journey. Maybe it really is just one step.

I debated writing another political post but after thinking long and hard I felt I owned it to the Republican party to comment. I mean lets face it I have written enough about Obama; McCain should get a little blog time as well.
See as I was watching McCains speech trying my best not to like him I actually found myself feeling for his life. I liked the dedication that he obviously has for his wife and children, the forward thinking of his believe in Sarah Palin as Vice President, and the horror that he suffered years ago while fighting for a country he overwhelming loves. Granted he isn't the speaker that Obama is but he did his best to infuse his speech with all that he was feeling; which I will be honest was a welcome change from the three days of Obama bashing speeches that had preceeded him. He opened his life and I believe his heart for America to see and it was touching.
Yet as I was watching all the commentators at the end pick apart the speech and compare it to Obamas I was reminded of a statement a Republican commentator made about Obama's speech; "It's just one great speech". That is how I felt after McCains.....It's just one great speech. However, as I was thinking back about Obama's speech I started to feel the same about his as well. There all just "one great speech".
The truth is that you can make the best speeches in the world it doesn't mean that wen you get in office you are actually going to do anything different. You can have the best voting record, the most understanding personality, the best relationship with every world leader but you also could cave under all the pressure of being the head honcho. You could have spent years in a small closed in space feeling that you would never get out but it doesn't mean that you have the temperment to govern 50 states and you can say all the right things in all the right ways and still not know anything about what to do when you get in the big chair.
I have enjoyed all the speeches of the last two weeks and I look forward to all the debates and speeches of the next two months but more than anything I look forward to the "change" that whoever gets into office brings. Because in all fairness isn't that all we have heard for eight years in "one great speech" and even those haven't been all that great.