The Pendulum

242 Marbles
The simplest questions are the most profound:
Where were you born?

Where is your home?

Where are you going?

What are you doing?

Think about these once in awhile, and watch your answers change.
 Richard Bach

    Lineage fascinates me, not in the family tree kind of way but how one generation affects the next generation.  We learn about who we are in the world by looking at our ancestors;  We can see how who they were affected who we have become.  I often note how people can either align with their parents/family (and grow up to become like them in morals and world view) or they can reject their family and swing the other way (often producing a different looking outcome).  It’s like a pendulum in which you can swing towards the parent or away from them but it seems that in this paradigm, actions are always a reaction to what you have experienced.  You swing one way, you swing the other, but never the equilibrium position of choosing what is right for you. 
    Is it possible to extricate ourselves from the family history from which we came?  Perhaps not entirely, but I do believe that we each arrive with awareness.  I remember being a child and going to mass at the Catholic church in which my parents were deeply ensconced.  I recall as a young girl not being able to recite many passages that I didn’t believe to be true, for example the Nicene Creed which, among other convictions, claims that the church is the “One Universal” church.  I knew this not to be true because I imagined people around the world (with different beliefs) who also had a relationship with God, equally as reverent and valued.  I knew that the way my parents saw the world was not the way I came into the world seeing it. 
    So what if we chose from that position of equilibrium?  We’d have to let go of the judgment that what our parents have done is either right or wrong.  We’d have to make choices based on what we believe.  We’d have to be conscious. 

Are you living the life that you want to live?  Are you making choices as a reaction to what other people value or what society/culture dictates?  Are there choices that you made, that made partnership easier, but didn't align with who you are? What would it take for you to make choices for you based on your own awareness?