Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - This Will Help You Find Your Way | Inspirational and Motivational Story

Episode Date: January 28, 2021

"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars" - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

For a handful of years, I'd made this annual trip to the desert in Utah. I'd take some time to be solo to clear my head, leave my phone in the cabin, which didn't have service anyway. I'd grab a backpack with some food, my camera, and I'd just go exploring. From the time the sun came up to the time I went down, I'd follow trails through the canyons, climb over rocks, wedge myself between boulders, traverse open fields, I would get lost in something so far. far outside the realm of my standard day to day that life, well, didn't feel like life. It felt surreal. One day I was out there and I guess it got kind of carried away making a running video. I looked down at the map as the sun was setting and realized I was miles from the car in the desert.

Not a good place to be. And this panic set over me. It was a mix of fear and annoyance with myself for letting something so stupid happen. This is precisely the vulnerability that the routine of our day-to-day lives seeks to mitigate. This is Society 101. We pay taxes and stop at red lights in exchange for the certainty that we won't die in the middle of a random desert, but hey look, life comes at you quickly. Suddenly that safety net wasn't there to protect me. Now what? I started running in what I believed to be the general direction I came from. Backpack full of camera gear and empty water bottles bouncing up and down with each step. My heart was pounding so fast that it felt like a movie. It didn't feel real, and as the sun lowered itself behind the mountains, I wasn't quite sure what

it would leave for me. Look, we know obstacles hurt, but the unknown really hurt. And the sky It turned this beautiful blue, purple, otherworldly color I guess it was the landscape Saying goodbye before it faded to black And I knew it would be black, black Like can't see the hand in front of your face black And as I continued on, the night sure validated my concerns

I had to stop running Had to walk because I could no longer see the bushes and rocks I was stepping over. Eventually I paused for a second, reeled myself in, put my hands on my hip, sighed, looked up. Notice something I never really had before. The sky.

Well, that makes zero sense, one might think, considering I'm a human being and I live on earth where there's very clearly a sky, but no, not like that. Not like Utah Desert Sky. A trillion tiny candles. that felt so real that I felt for the first time nothing separated them from me. I was a part of it. I was immersed in a blanket of stars.

If I could live for 20-something years and never see that, imagine the smaller miracles I've been blindly dancing around. Imagine the beauty that isn't hanging directly over my head. It was out there, and I vowed from now on I'd find it just like this path home, but hey, let's start there. And perhaps in the moment was that I felt part of it. of something bigger than my mini crisis. Or maybe it was because common sense had finally set in.

But I got this feeling of calm. By momentarily losing myself in the stars, I came back down to Earth. I understood everything would be okay, that worst case, I'd just pace back and forth until the sun came up. I mean, sure, it wasn't 100% everything would be fine, but is it ever?

I proceeded to walk forward, eyes fixated on the ground in front of me, using the screen on my camera as a guiding light. Perhaps this wasn't the right path, but at this point it was the one I had committed to. Some time went by, and I saw in the distance what I was pretty sure was either a cell phone or a flashlight, which I know what a concept.

I followed it more sure of myself with each step forward, eventually passing a sign indicated that the trailhead was a quarter of a mile in the same direction. And I paused again and smiled to myself. Ultimately, I found the parking lot, hopped in the car, just as the odds suggested I would. And I departed from my mini adventure. As I was driving back, windows down,

headlights cutting through the darkness, the only sound, the tires making their way over the gravel below, I sat there thinking and realized, I actually felt sad. I felt like I wasn't ready to depart that little journey. That I needed that uncertainty in my life. I needed to conquer something new. I thought about the abrupt panic,

the wolves, rattlesnakes, and scorpions that danced around in my head. And how such a small, almost laughable step outside of my comfort zone felt like a tremendous leap. I guess our most important moments come when we least expect them. And while I learned a lot about myself that night, I learned that there will be times we find ourselves wandering through the darkness of life. Maybe ill-prepared, angry at ourselves for not foreseeing that things would unfold the way they did. But these obstacles are most likely solvable and small in the grand scheme of things,

and that's not even the most important part. They are the gateway into our souls. Into the ecstasy and the adventure that live outside the confines of parameters and checklists and routines. They remind us to look up and see what really matters. To peel back the manufactured must-haves we erroneously bow down to,

I'd have to live that moment to understand what it meant, to see that the things we most The most fear are the things we most need. That real dreaming it happens when we're awake and that anytime you feel abandoned or lost or alone, look up at that blanket of stars. Realize they're not against you, but a part of you. A beacon of hope along the way. And no, they can't promise you answers or guaranteed outcomes.

but I can promise you you wouldn't want that anyway