Question: I have long been investigating my personal career goals and see how they contradict what I really love and wish to do. I have been guilty of pursuing money first, but after years of feeling like I haven’t really succeeded (despite aiming for seemingly better circumstances), I see I am no better off financially. In fact, I have less comfort and material possessions and more debt. What steps do I take, when all I really love is learning about life and writing to help clarify my thoughts and understanding? I see this coincides with my artistic and creative sides that seem to have unlimited energy. How do I pursue this without starving?

Answer: We must each start where we are, with what we are and “have”… as anything else is harmful imagination and leads us nowhere. When we begin awakening to the impossibility of fulfilling our heart’s need to enlarge its relationship with Life, we also find ourselves “trapped” in a world of choices, none of which seem to offer a way out. But the real trap is the level of “self” that wants out according to its timetable and insatiable demands.

It may be hard to grasp at first, but the awakening to our authentic need is produced by Authenticity itself… and its will cannot be denied. God, Christ, Light, Truth, what have you, will not fail to reveal to us in time the manner and means we need to succeed in fulfilling the wish it stirred in us through that first bit of conscious dissatisfaction we feel while doing what we do just to “win” what never completes us.

So, work at what you can — and at what you need (for now) — to fulfill your responsibilities; BUT, while working like this… watch everything around you closely. Look for little doors and windows of opportunity along the lines of your creative desires, or whatever. They will appear. And even as you do the work you must, embrace these portals of possibility. Experiment, test, sacrifice as needed your “extra” time to develop what you see as worthwhile doing. In time, it’s inevitable that a “shift” of some kind will take place making it possible for you to “risk” making the switch from just “living” to “loving” your life because you have now found it.