Equuality: Reflections on Life with Horses

Permission to Be

About the Book

It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of someone else's life with perfection. -The Bhagavad Gita

As humans, we are always looking for a guru. A leader who has been there, done that, and has all the answers ready for us. We believe that when we find the perfect guide, our problems will be solved immediately, as if by the waving of a magic wand. It happens in all aspects of our lives: we think the right person will give us the perfect job, the right partner will make us feel complete and whole, the right spiritual leader will hand us the phone that dials directly to God's number.

This desire for guidance has been programmed into our genetic makeup by the very process of evolution that has made us human. Our genetic ancestors gave up protective hides, sharp claws, incredible vision, faster reflexes, keener senses of hearing and smell, and countless other useful qualities to gain one key trait: the ability to adapt to new situations within a single lifetime by sharing detailed knowledge with each other.

While we were losing our more primal aspects, our enlarging brains were giving us the ability to gather, store, communicate, analyze, and act upon complex information that allowed us to adapt to our environments without having to wait through generations of genetic evolution. Thus, it is at the core of our being to seek information from those who have come before us.

This desire to aggregate the wisdom of others is a wonderful gift. It has allowed us to create many wonderful things and learn many amazing skills. It is the reason I have read so many books containing the insights of others, and one of the reasons I decided to write my own stories and thoughts down.

However, as with anything else in life, we must sometimes step back from our seeking to make sure we are acting in moderation and out of love for ourselves. All too often, I have found myself chasing after someone else's experience with an unhealthy voracity. I begin to think, "If I could only play with a horse like Pat Parelli, then I'd have it made," or "If I could ride a colt like Ray Hunt, then I'd be a real horseman."

In these moments, I put my mentors up on a pedestal and try to be what they are. Part of me thinks that if I could imitate their actions, attitude, techniques, and tools perfectly enough, that I could, in effect, become them. Then I would no longer have to be my imperfect self.

When I think these things, I am doing a great deal of harm to myself. I am discounting and disregarding my own insights and experience. I am, in fact, denying those characteristics about myself that make me unique. I am throwing the baby of my individual gifts out with the bath water of my perceived faults.

I am also taking away from those who I am trying to imitate. In making them so perfect in my minds eye, I rob them of the ability to be human themselves. I either hold their every action under the microscope, ready to judge them totally for any fault, or I build them up so high that they could never live up to the grandeur of my expectations. When I do find a mistake in their teaching and turn my back on them for their imperfection, I steal from myself the chance of learning any lessons from all of the things that they do well.

Instead of looking to our gurus to have all of the answers, I believe that we do greater good for them and for ourselves when we see them for what they really are: human beings, just like our selves, who have lived their own profoundly unique lives. When we stop expecting them to provide a blueprint we can blindly follow to enlightenment and success, we gain the ability to open our eyes and truly learn from both the successes and the mistakes that have shaped their lives. When we let go of trying to live a perfect imitation of their life, we free ourselves to fully live our own authentic journey. In the brief moments where I am able to live this way, I find that I realize the truth: I don't need to try to be more like anyone to be a real horseman, or anything else. I already am everything I want to be, I just have to give myself permission to believe it.