Nothing kidnaps our capacity for presence more cruelly than longing. And yet longing is also the most powerful creative force we know: Out of our longing for meaning came all of art; out of our longing for truth all of science; out of our longing for love the very fact of life.*
Maria Popova

The problem with getting what you want is that now you have a hole, because you don’t want that thing anymore, you have it … There’s a more resilient path: To commit to wanting what you have.**
Seth Godin

To be present to something in life is
the most important thing of all,
Too many focus on the hole in their life rather than
celebrating the fullness –
What they have and what they can do with it;
Carlos Castenades, in passing on the shaman wisdom of
Don Juan, suggests we ask a question:
Does this path have a heart?
If it does, the path is good;
if it doesn’t, it is of no use.
Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart,
the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey;
as long as you follow it, you are one with it.
The other will make you curse your life.
One makes you strong; the other weakens you.^

It is important to find a path with a heart,
The telling confirmation of what you have rather than
What you do not have;
It doesn’t matter what it is save for this one thing –
It must have a heart:
Nothing has inherent meaning.
It is what it is and
that’s it.
We choose to project meaning onto things.
It feels good to make stories.^^

We are meaning-making creatures, responding to a universe which
asks the questions of us: What will you do with your life?, and so,
To turn our meaning into something we can live out over a lifetime, we
turn it into a story:
We do not go to a storyteller to learn
what we already know.
We go with a prayer:
Please let me gain insights into life
I’ve never had before; let the characters
be originals I’ve never met before.*^

And we are storytellers all.

*Maria Popova’s The Marginalian blog: The Thing Itself: C.S. Lewis on What We Long for in Our Existential Longing;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Wanting and getting;
^Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan;
^^Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah Or No;
*^Robert McKee’s Character.