10/24/13—Seeing More Choices

Today's Draw: Crossroad, Moon and Stork from the Zingdoodle Lenormand by Jera Babylon Rootweaver. Are you at a crossroads in some aspect of your life? Are your choices clear? Is your mind open or closed to other options?

Today I'm reading this three-card combo as "creative choices bring new beginnings." What that made me think of is something I've said here before, but that merits repeating—we always have more choices than we think we do. 

If you're like me, you tend to just stick to simple choices, like "stay or leave" and "do or don't". And many times we feel clear on what our options are. For example, I've probably been talking about wanting to move to Maine for about 10 years now...haha. To me, my choices are clear...stay in DC or move to Maine. Along with that choice comes another decision involving my career. The choice there is also cut and dried...quit or continue with what I'm doing. But the reality is that there are many more options available to me that I haven't even thought of (until now). 

One thought that just came into my head is that, instead of quitting my job as a copywriter to start a job as an author, is "why can't I write a book about copywriting, collecting tips as I write?" It never occurred to me, but I could. Other options I've considered include writing a book about being self employed, using my spiritual beliefs to guide my decisions. I could easily write a book about that. Or I could become a speaker about marketing, spirituality or the writing life. I could teach. There are many things I'm capable of doing that I would love doing. Things I could do alongside my copywriting or in place of it. And some of them are only now occurring to me. 

I tend to think "either, or" and the truth is that there are so many hybrid and alternative options available to me. And I also tend to think I have few pathways to figuring out the money end of being an author, but I'm sure I'm limiting myself there, too. Also, I don't have to move to Maine to do any of this...haha. For a while, I somehow thought I did. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we tend to create traps for ourselves by coming up with a few options or ideas of what we want and how we want it, then carving it in stone, thereby closing our minds to further thought on the topic. We need to be more fluid...consider more options than just "this or that". 

I was looking for a conversation I had with the creator of today's deck and I can't find it. So I hope I'm not getting this wrong. But she created a number of decks using found art and graphic design skills...great decks. Creative decks. But it took creating maybe four or five of those before it occurred to her that she should just draw a deck on her own. I own all her decks. I love all her decks. But this is by far now my favorite of hers. And it seems to have been a very empowering and inspirational choice for her. She kept her mind open to other possibilities and, by doing so, opened up a whole new avenue for her to pursue with her art and her decks. 

What kind of brilliant solution is laying dormant in you, possibly because you determined your options a while back and haven't reconsidered them? Like anything else, when you put your mind to it, you might just find a few new ideas.