‘My Way’

In my opinion the best rendition of this song was by Sid Vicious – well, at least the most memorable!

Hear the song at funerals these days, often wonder whether the ‘departed’ chose it or someone else thought it might be appropriate.

Think I might put it in my Will – to play or not to play – that is the question!

Yes, I’ve done a lot ‘my way’ and usually been dissatisfied when I’ve not been allowed to.

You see, my ‘Way’ or your ‘Way’ is really the only way to go, the only way we can go if we are to be fulfilled as individuals.

In the Bible, the verse (John 14:6) “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” has a remarkably consistent translation across all English versions.

(Wow, that was a bit of a leap from Sid Vicious to Jesus!)

As usual though, the translation may be consistent, but the interpretation isn’t.; especially that of ‘Father’ and the first and last words ‘I am’ and ‘through me’.

To my way of thinking, the ‘Father’ is not an external entity I am supposed to commune with but the enlightenment I find within my Self, and when Jesus of Nazaraeth said ‘I am’ he was talking about himself and his own journey as a man to find that enlightenment.

He was not commanding people to ‘follow’ him or to do what he told them, although in a way he was.

Do as I do, find your way, find your truth, live your life, that is the Way to your fulfilment.

He did not set out to start a religion, that was created by others who picked up on his teachings for their own ends, much in the same way as the followers of other prophets and philosophers.

So, what about my Way?

How did I find it? How many timelines have I travelled to get it all together?

Because I have found my Way, I do know my Purpose and I am making progress now on that journey. What’s more I am happy to declare that with confidence.

When we come into this world, we have no idea what’s going on and no knowledge and this first age up to about 5.

In one of the last scenes of Star Wars III (the third of the prequel trilogy) an order is given to have C3PO’s mind wiped because otherwise in A New Hope (first of the originals) the droid would have remembered people from the previous films which would have been anomalous with the script of the movies made before.

When we decide to return to this world we know our Purpose and our Way, but while we’re waiting to be born that information gets wiped and we spend a large proportion of our lives on earth in rediscovering why we are here!

In finding our Way.

Between the ages of 5 and my mid-teens I put a lot of effort into getting to ‘know’ stuff – learning – with not much sense of purpose or direction, just going with the flow, through the school system, because that’s the way it is.

Then by the age of 21 I was given a piece of paper which convinced me, now I’d been through the mill, that I knew it all, all there was to know, and I could pretty much go off and do anything.

So I did, my way.

I decided not to ‘get a job’ but to start my own business.

Correction, I did get a job as a schoolteacher for a year in a ‘Secondary Modern’ as they were then, in Widnes. I hated every minute of it, not so much the teaching itself, I enjoyed that bit, but the system under which we had to operate. (Rant avoidance process activated)

My partner and I spotted a gaping hole in the market and set up a business primarily to provide print and associated items to Student Unions who wanted stuff that most local printers would respond to with a sharp intake of breath, usually because it wasn’t just straight black and white.

We, or more to the point I, thought we knew it all, took very little advice, but managed to work it all out for ourselves.

We stayed in business relatively successfully for quite a while in what, in the 70’s, were quite harsh economic times.

At the end of that decade, changing technological forces caused a decision to be made to close and sell off the business as continuing would require significant change.

In any case it was time to do something else.

I was approaching stage 4 – the ‘mid-life crisis’ – when I realised I knew very little and understood even less.

Where were you coming up to age 35?

I’ll tell you where I was next time.