It isn't often that I get inspired by a bank ad. More accurately, it's been never. Until last Sunday, when I noticed the big bold print in an Umpqua Bank advertisement in the Salem newspaper.
If you make your own path,
you can't lose your way.
Ooh! So Zen.
As was one of the questions in last night's presidential debate between Obama and McCain.
What don't you know and how will you learn it?
Terrific question. The answers were just OK, something about expecting the unexpected. Which fits with the Umpqua Bank philosophy.
Many spiritual and religious faiths stress the need for a guide. I used to believe that such was necessary, that without a guru to show you the Truth Path and how to stay on it, you'd wander aimlessly in a maze of karmic illusion.
Now, I feel that one word in the sentence I just wrote above makes all the difference. Should it be "the Truth Path" or "a Truth Path"?
If there's only one way, you'd better try to make sure you're on it.
However, if there's no evidence that ultimate reality is reached in this fashion rather than that fashion (or, more cynically, in any fashion at all), then choosing your own path makes good sense.
Self-doubt is a confidence killer. And a happiness destroyer.
When I was a kid the small town I grew up in would show movies outside on summer Friday nights. I saw the Walt Disney flick where Davy Crockett dies at the Alamo many times. One of Crockett's lines got burned into my psyche.
Be sure you're right, then go ahead.
(check out the poster of Crockett riding a couple of crocodiles; that's confidence)
Religions offer up ready-made spiritual paths, complete with dogmatic and moralistic curbs designed to keep believers from steering off the purported way.
Problem is, all the paths are different. So anybody choosing one religious way necessarily has to reject countless others.
Why not follow the Umpqua Bank approach? Reject every way except your own. Then you won't have to worry about getting off-course, since wherever you go will be the place you want to be.
Comments