Imagine the Bridge

What do you want to do when you grow up?  What are your dreams? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? What would you do if money was no object? 

These questions have been a good way to make me burst into tears.  Granted depression has been a factor, but I think that being autistic is probably a factor as well.  Getting into something that I'm not sure about the process is extremely intimidating.  For instance I've never been skiing, so I don't know if it would be a bit like showing up at the skate rink, renting some skates, being pointed to the correct area, or what would happen. Would I need to wear the sort of poofy layers like I did as a child before playing in the snow or is something else more appropriate?   The details and the steps I wouldn't know where to get. Most of the searches I do are either too vague (Dress appropriately!) or start on the mountain in skis.  This tracks to things I've done before, like cooking.  There is so much between being able to prepare food to feed oneself and catering or bakeries or restaurants. So, trying to visualize myself in position G from spot B freaks me out.  There are things though that I enjoy doing that are useful, add value to the world, and stay in my perception of my core identity even when I am not doing them. 

 

“	A wizard's progress is frequently obstructed by rivers, gorges, and other such inconveniences. This spell allows you to build a bridge across such obstacles and proceed with your journey. The search for truth must go on, after all.	”
—Wizard's Companion

This is your life now.

I can't manifest myself into an end goal, only use that end to know which direction to build my bridge.  In Ni No Kuni there is a bridge spell, but it can only be used in a place where it looks like a bridge should be.  I'm not going to practice making the flakiest pastry dough and end up being a neurosurgeon directly.  That's not a place a bridge would go.  I might island hop for a while and move from being a fry cook, to several more dots, then end up owning a massive online marketplace, but it's not a one step journey. So, we have to imagine the bridge.  I don't know anyone that can see very far into the future, so it's a given that part of the bridge ahead of our immediate area will still be in the fog of war.  It will only show up in detail as we get there.  Using yet another metaphor, in Pixar’s film, Soul, there’s a parable in a story about a fish.

She says:

I heard this story about a fish, he swims up to an older fish and says: "I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean." "The ocean?" the older fish says, "that’s what you’re in right now." "This", says the young fish, "this is water. What I want is the ocean!"

The process is what is important.  Reaching a milestone is but a moment.  In the journey of life even stopping won't hold still the ever changing landscape.  Like Mel Robbins explains, sitting and thinking about crossing the finish line doesn't train a body for a marathon.  If you imagine the processes, the problems and difficulties that come while training and practicing, it will mentally prepare you for what is coming.  Then oriented towards the goal by imagining the goal, we do.  One can't be discovered as an artist, if one doesn't make any art.  Eugene Soh became an accidental artist by making a piece of art. Then once people started talking to him, he did more.  A chef bakes, a landscaper transforms a landscape, and the action of doing as close to what the end desire is, is both the journey and the end.

I hope that helps someone.