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I see navigating one's own life journey as an ideal, a goal to be sought, not something that happens automatically because we become "adults." In fact, adulthood itself is a bit of a fiction.

As young children, our parents really seemed like gods and goddesses. In our minds, they were all-powerful and all-knowing, a fiction that often worked to their advantage. As teenagers, we don't think they know anything. When we become adults, we realize that our parents weren't all-powerful or all-knowing and neither are we.

In a study done anonymously with presidents of companies and other high executives, it was discovered that most of them believed that they were fakes. They weren't as competent or confident as others believed.

As adults, we are all also fakes. By that I mean that none of us is navigating his or her life according to our highest potential. If most adults were honest, they would admit that they don't feel like adults. They don't feel that they are really on top of their lives. They don't feel in control of the ship of life. Most often, we feel like victims of circumstances, unable to affect the winds and waves of life.

It would seem that as adults we would be in a position to be the navigator of our lives, to make our own decisions, to be the "captains of our souls." But that's not the way we feel and not the way we experience our lives most of the time. We often feel rudderless and unable to choose our own course or have any significant impact on the forces of nature or society.

That's why I say that navigating our own journey of life is an ideal. Accomplishing this may be the reason we are here. We are here to learn how to navigate our life journey. We are here to learn how to become adults.

Why is becoming an adult so difficult? Why can't we simply make the right choices, make the correct turns, do the right thing every time? Is it simply because we really are the victims of circumstances, victims of other people's behavior and their decisions? Are we the victims of nature, our history, of society, and of world events?

Many of us experience life in that way, even some of us who do not believe we are victims. We still feel like victims sometimes. So why do I not make all of the right choices, take all of the right actions, say all of the right things? If I am not fully in charge of my own ship, not the captain of my soul, then who is?

We are here to become enlightened, to become full adults. We are here to be conscious creators of our life experiences. We

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