It’s amazing how much we can create with some good patience, soft touch and dedication.
Sometimes I’d be asked questions like, “How do you know so much? How did you make your dreams and passions a reality? How do you have such deep understanding and wisdom on so many diverse topics? How do you understand so deeply how to work with so many different tools? How are you so insightful and aware?”
The answer to all these is rather simple: dedication. Everything meaningful that I’ve ever been able to create, whether big or small, whether internal or external, has always involved my investment of time, energy, intention, love, dedication, commitment, loyalty and devotion. It is a whole heart and whole body process – this is the creation, this is the wisdom that unveils on the path.
What I’ve noticed though is that in our modern world, the “work” stops when the question and answers stop. What I mean by this is that after a person receives the insight they do not take hold of their key, they do not actually choose to do the work that is needed. Or – they begin, and then they stop, because they realize the old spiritual teaching of the path “chop wood, carry water” isn’t all fun and games, and it doesn’t satisfy their need for instant gratification. We may receive the insights we need, but whether or not we apply them through every day efforts, hands and ordinary gestures is another story.
The truth is that it takes a lot, a lot of work. Not just when we feel like it, not just sometimes – but always. Chop wood, carry water. Chop wood, carry water. This is the way. Because dedication is the secret ingredient to all that would be meaningful in your life.
In the old days, and still today hopefully for those who truly understand spiritual teachings, when the seeker or student went to their spiritual teacher, the first few years all the seeker would have to do is ordinary work. Work in the garden, work to assist the teacher, work for the charities; and yet no “teaching” or spiritual lessons and esoteric wisdom would be given to the student. This would go on for years. Most students would often get frustrated, “Why am I doing this? I am not awakened at all, I haven’t even been taught anything, when will I finally get what I came here for?” This was the path for those who were students of astrology also; because the first few years would usually be spent in devotional work through the gardens or chores or charities, rather than the actual esoteric secrets of astrology.
Time went by, chop wood, carry water; until the day the student became ready and the teacher would then begin sharing the knowledge, insights and wisdoms. But you see – the real teaching was already happening all along. Because to receive and be able to actually perceive the spiritual teachings, you need to have already built that inner capacity to understand it. And you build this through your work of patience, devotion, humility, self discipline, responsibility etc. – because what you are doing is actually building your inner world, self awareness and your maturity. There are many lessons that happen outside of the books; and it is through tending to another that we learn them.
Dedication to our work, whether it is our spiritual development, our craft, our relationships, our creativity, our wellness and health – is essentially understanding the importance of the value of the time and energy we are pouring into it. For example, self-development is a path that is a hard one. But we don’t just do it when a problem arises and we need to solve it. It’s an every day thing.
Like a relationship is also dedication; we don’t just put in the effort when a conflict arises or things became disharmonious between us or the disconnection solidifies. We need to show consistent amount of effort – we need to show dedication, loyalty, commitment and appreciation towards our partner every day. Even when we feel like crap, we should at least show up for our partner.
Like going to the gym is also dedication; surely, some days we don’t feel like exercising. But we know how good it feels after – how our body feels better, how our mind is clearer. And if we don’t want to go to the gym, that’s fine too, but we can go for a walk, or do some other form of exercise. Movement sustains our body and nourishes our wellbeing.
If you want to feel like you are really embodying the talent, the skill, the love, the intimacy, the craft – and if you really want to experience a deeper connection to all and to everything – to be able to understand your intuitive voice and be more connected to your own self and your own unique path and to another person – then you really need to devote time and energy.
Every single thing in life that has been meaningful and purposeful and contributed to my inner fulfillment and spiritual growth involved my time, energy and devotion. It involved commitment to it, whatever the “it” was.
We can’t just be a “sometimes” and yet expect the “everything fully”.
To experience the depth of connection, we need dedication, devotion, commitment, and loyalty. It takes every day consistent amounts of effort.
This is what allows us to truly walk our path in a deeper way and to experience our life in a truly more magical way.
Chop wood, carry water. Study, learn, explore, approach it all with dedication.
Of course, it’s not always fun and easy. It’s not always fun and easy to cook, to clean, to pay attention to our partner, or to self-reflect on the thing we thought we’ve settled into peace; it’s much easier to blame the external world and get back to scrolling things online, distracting ourselves from ourselves.
Dedication can be quite magical in itself. Similar to creativity, it can serve people as a saving grace in times of instability, uncertainties, worries and turbulent global climates. In a way, dedication asks us to hold stillness in the midst of chaos and confusion. It holds our intention clearly and lovingly. It holds attention in the midst of distraction. It holds us captive in a love, in a thing of endurance, when we are in the midst of uncertainties. It’s a kind of prayer – the creativity of heart and soul – for prayer too is what holds us in the eye of the storm.
Within itself, dedication has a desire that endures, that keeps us focused, that is heart-led, trust-led, faith-led. And it leads with hands. But if we truly want such hands to hold us, and for us to hold them too, we need to let go from holding onto the hunger of instant gratification, the need to be wanted, or called from the streets like a stray dog whenever someone needs it.
Dedication has authenticity and clear intention within itself – so it isn’t about other people’s opinions of what we should do or how our business should be based on modern day perceptions and how long “success” or the external materialization should take. Dedication aligns to your own higher values and deeper connection to your higher intention, and this requires the courage of autheticity. This is not a dress rehearsal. Leave the doubts and the door, and walk into the house with trust, with heart, with love. And then, chop wood, carry water.
The forgotten art of the apprenticeship.
We journey through life in continual moving adjustments, along the threads, much of which are potentials rather than predetermined designs. And yet the paths we take and weave ourselves, constantly try to align themselves to our overall purpose or destiny. In other words, we can never stray too far from our what is meant for us; from our purpose or calling or even fate. No matter how many twists and turns we make, the path meant to lead us towards fulfilling our calling may always reshape itself in response to the choices that we make in life.
We live in a very fast paced world where it’s all about instant validation and people are so stressed when they don’t know what their calling or purpose is. It’s the human race, racing. We rarely have time to reflect, learn, research and make mistake, try again, and then mistake again … and then try again. There is wisdom in mistakes and each one takes us one step closer, as long as we actually learn from it. Life isn’t some “aha” moment from a Hollywood movie scene, where suddenly there are a whole bunch of sound effects and there we are, all in sparkles, finally found our calling. Okay, so what’s next?
Life asks of us to remember the forgotton art of the apprenticeship. It is our every day small steps we take, as we chop wood, carry water. Our “calling” is a life’s work, not a sudden thing.
There are many tales that speak of the art of apprenticeship and most of them involve the concept of weaving, for it takes time to learn and even master. It also takes many years, and seemingly unimportant tasks, sometimes even boring and non-sensical. But everything in life takes time. Developing a vision for our life may take time, sometimes a long time because things are shaping and re-shaping along the way. Creating a loving relationship and building the trust and intimacy between two partners also takes time. There is an ongoing process where no little daily thing is without its meaning and purpose for the overall design.
In the tale “The Black Bull of Norroway” the girl spends seven long years apprenticed to a blacksmith. She had to do that because it was her impatience that separated her from the one destined for her. And so, she stepped off the path a little bit – for seven years – to learn patience through the work. There are many more tales like that, which show the importance of the path itself; and there is a saying, “don’t hurry too much you’ll miss your destiny”.
The tales’ messages are clear. Sometimes we step off, learn a few more skills, and if we learn them properly, these experiences will lead us back to where we wanted to be. There is value in the learning, in the waiting, in the thinking we are not progressing. The humility in apprenticeship, in the weaving, deserves to be treasured. And sometimes the greatest progress is made precisely during these quiet seemingly ordinary moments.
Delayed gratification.
The other thing that I’ve seen in our modern world that often times prevents us from moving forward is that we want to see results right away. But that’s rarely what happens.
We live in a fast paced world and we have many platforms from which we can get instant gratification. And that’s very satisfying and very addictive. So much so, that when we are faced with real life, where things usually don’t happen immediately, we are tempted to give up or assume it won’t work out, or that we are on the wrong path, or that maybe we weren’t good enough anyway. And then we feel rejected, discouraged or lose motivation, and then, we give up.
The ability to delay gratification and practice self-control, directly impacts our future success and opportunity for growth. It can feel discouraging and annoying not to get the “reward” right away – but it is a muscle that we can train.
And why is delayed gratification so important?
Learning how to delay impulse for immediate pleasure in favour for long-term satisfaction is what is needed for long-term growth. It also teaches us to be more attuned to the cycles of the land and accepting ourselves more fully; we realize that things take time and we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves. We also learn to turn our focus inwards and align more truly to our intentions, versus doing things just to get validation or gratification from the outside. Ultimately, we settle into ourselves and become more fulfilled, emotionally and spiritually. And we learn to trust ourselves.
The lack of delayed gratification is actually very apparent in modern relationships. Impulsivity of communication, misuse and overuse of sexual behaviours, and inability to build intimacy and long-term fulfilling connections, are all results of this. We send a text, don’t get a response right away – and that’s it, over, next. We forget that there is a human being on the other end, and we have forgotten how to even normally communicate with one another anymore. Intimacy is often non-existent, a distant exotic thing in the far skies, that we can only idealize and romanticise – and we forget that it takes a lot of time and effort and heart to build intimacy with someone. Communication itself is a long path, a dance, of twists and turns, between two people that takes time to come into its fuller and deeper understanding.
Delayed gratification teaches us self-trust, self-reliance, self-sufficiency and self-confidence – because we learn to take care of our own needs rather than rely on external sources for ego soothing, validation and pleasure.
Pleasure is central to our survival, but as we mature, we need to learn to tolerate the discomfort of delayed gratification, especially if we have a higher purpose or vision.
In a way, we often prefer instant rewards because we want to avoid pain and disappointment. But that’s impossible to do in life. At one point or another, we all face some pain and disappointment. And we need to accept these faces of life, otherwise we’ll never be truly fulfilled.
Delayed gratification is also an important spiritual skill and is the foundation of self-development. While there are some people who look towards spirituality as a “quick fix” or some validation of their biases, every person who is mature and serious about their spiritual path knows the importance of delayed gratification. It’s a walk we walk by ourselves and there are no maps, no directions, no how-to-steps. Just like in relationsips. It takes time and effort to learn the unique languages of the word called “us”.
I know it’s hard when we don’t get the results as soon as we had hoped. Social media shows us that it should be immediate, right? But that’s not real life. And unfortunately very few people talk about the real life nowadays because everyone wants to look perfect and “successful”. We are rarely shown the behind the scenes, the many years it took someone to be where they are. And so it is of course natural to feel like we are not good enough or that we are doing something wrong, or not fast enough.
We pour all our heart, time, and effort, into something that maybe is not that “popular” or instantly rewarded. For example, most blogs take five years to gain momentum; and then just when you gain the momentum, you get leveled by some algorithm change, which now supports ai content rather than human made. So it can feel really demoralizing to give so much of yourself without much in return; because you start to feel invisible or not appreciated for all your work. And if you are a writer, well, writing itself is a blind art. Most people may love what you do but they’ll rarely say it. Most people don’t even know how to appreciate someone, express their gratitude, or say a simple compliment. The path of the creative is a very hard one. People are just takers nowadays because they are used to getting everything for free online, and as such, they don’t know the time and work it takes on the other side, so appreciation lacks also. This is why most creatives and even business owners may completely give up their work within less than a year. But for the rest of us … what do we do?
We wake up and we do it again. We take the fire burning inside of our skin and heart and channel it. Because we know why we do what we do; because we are clear on our intention and our vision ahead, and we have the courage that the passion of our heart gives us. We are clear on our purpose. We know the wisdom of time, the wisdom of the path, the wisdom of devotion and dedication. We are path makers. We know our why, and our why has absolutely nothing to do with what the outside world tells us – we know we are not a box, not a category, not a social media square to fit into. We know what real work looks like, what real purpose is, what the real path is. And mainly, we are deeply aligned to our spiritual core – to the truth of who we are and what our higher values are.
This is where dedication comes in, again and again.
Chop wood, carry water.
Create the beautiful environment, the soil, nurture it, care for it, and I promise you – a wild rose will reach its hands through the soil, will grow, will bloom, and will scent your hands. And you’ll then scent the hands of all those others you’ll touch – because the fragrance of a real rose is unmistakable, pure and magnificient, and it reaches far and wide, beyond the boundaries and horizons.
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Cover art is Bluebonnets near San Antonio, Texas, by Julian Onderdonk, 1918.