As I lay in bed staring at a video, I realized it had just turned midnight and 2025 was here. I turned off the computer, hopped out of the warm cocoon, and ran downstairs barefoot in a tee shirt and shorts to chant Om under the stars in the cold, gusting mountain air.
With prayer hands, I “ommed” to the wind, and the wind sang its howl back to me. I ommed to the Universe, and it hummed right back at me. I felt alive, awake, and connected to my chilled body, to the canopy of stars, to the singing wind, and to the sweet and only moment.
I lumbered up the stairs later, cold and happy, grateful for the friend that had reminded me of past New Years' Oms. Our gang would huddle outside in the cold mountain air, clinging to each other in a big, drunken lump, laughing, swaying, stumbling, and Omming our welcome to the new year.
My solo ritual was just as grand and satisfying.
Crawling back into bed, I grabbed a book. I had resolved to unplug from screen time, and it was starting right then, in the earliest moments of the year. I resolve this often, to be honest. But trying and failing is always the best practice for success, and I was more determined than ever. As the days, weeks, and years pass, I can’t ignore the morphine-like dopamine drip which flows with every click of the mouse.
I’m fortunate that I remember life before screens. Growing up, we had a TV with 3 fuzzy channels and a few preferred FM radio stations. Life wasn’t perfect by any means, but we were accustomed to silence. We experienced the great benefits of boredom. Life offered more human-to-human contact, even if it could be sucky, unhealthy, or annoying. But it was real. We were there, we showed up in the world, for better or worse. We were forced to take risks and grow from the process.
(Warning, screen rant ahead: Risks and growth are not available through a screen. We become enslaved to the screen, lacking the authority to turn away as time disappears into the ether. Our wisdom is subjugated by “influencers,” talking heads, so-called authorities who have us looking at them and not at ourselves. We neglect our own lives as we try to live someone else’s or think someone else’s thoughts or basically sleepwalk through a veil of beliefs and opinions that are as worthless as our own. End of rant.)
While life could feel more real then, it certainly wasn’t easy. I was miserable, depressed, confused. Over the years, I would pray for relief, not knowing what relief could even be. And Wisdom would tell me the same thing, over and over, and I would ignore it until I didn’t. “Silence.” “Be still.” “Return to this moment.” “Look inward.”
This turned out to be my juicy, lovely, fascinating, meaningful purpose (dharma). The long, gory, and even silly search for my dharma was also my dharma. It's through silence, stillness, returning to this moment, and looking inward that my life is manifesting its perfect destiny.
I know this because I know this. I looked everywhere else and came up short. I listened to every other voice except the wise one within, and got nowhere.
I’ve been struggling to write an article called Manifest Destiny. I liked the sound of the words, and figured maybe it could relate to the journey towards meaning, purpose, dharma. I couldn’t remember what the phrase meant from high school history, so I checked. It was the 1845 belief that the US had a divine obligation to spread capitalism and democracy across western North America.
Maybe each of us has a divine obligation to expand the meaning and purpose of our lives, so that we can live the life of our dreams. Destiny happens. The question is if we want to actively shape it through curiosity, awareness, and courage, or do we want to plop into it through reactivity and unconscious sleepwalking?
Goals and objectives require effort and action to achieve them. But when we seek purpose, meaning, dharma, the opposite is true: ease and awareness are all that’s needed. Relaxation. Quiet. Breath. That’s when Wisdom, our smartest, bravest selves, volunteers its guidance. And miraculously, choices become evident and accessible.
Omming barefoot in the raging wind at midnight, I prayed for my continued inward exploration. I prayed to release my addiction to media. I prayed for silence, stillness, awareness. I prayed for freedom.
May we all manifest our destinies in the only moment that is.