It seems only too often I let the old program of “what am I doing with my life?” permeate my presence. I think it’s a malevolent, manipulative and entirely unnecessary quantification many of us drag along in our Western culture.
It’s bad enough we’re competitive with each other in many unhealthy ways, but we could do with a lot more self-compassion. Besides, the whole issue with “doing” with our lives, more often than not, has to do with money — or some other arbitrary, external metric that has little or nothing to do with true fulfilment and service to humanity.
The idea of “I have no life” is bullshit. By whose standards is that defined, exactly? Celebrity photos and extremely selective social media feeds? Fictional characters? The fantastic and creative fish tales of those whom we deem adventurous, daring, bold?
We all have our gifts. Many of us persist and follow through and make something of them, truly loving what we do and create. Many of us try to fit and conform them into someone else’s ideas of success or achievement or worthiness. Many of us never dare to step into the vulnerability and openness of pursuing that which may on the surface seem trivial or impractical, or impossible.
The truth is, that what we pursue isn’t necessarily destined to arrive at the closed and predictable conclusion of what we set out to achieve. There are myriad directions, open doors, opportunities and reverberations that we cannot know of beforehand. Just as the drudgery of a job or career seemingly devoid of purpose and satisfaction affords us skills and abilities that we transition forward into our heart-aligned pursuits later on.
And of course, those little things and intangibles we overlook all the time — that have no price, no measurement, often no logic and no forethought — that can make someone’s day, that can inspire someone to choose, that can bring someone squarely back into the moment… These are the gifts we forget or are unaware that we even gave.
Where you are, is where you are. If you were to step back and look at all the varied aspects and ripples out into the world that you’ve had a part in creating, it’d become evident very quickly that yours is a rich life — even if you too often minimize, downplay, discard, invalidate and make inconsequential your efforts and achievements.
Or worse, you believe someone else who tells you so. Their pain isn’t yours to make sense of, nor to assume. Their efforts of invalidation are only evidence of frustration, regrets and untapped potentials that they may or may not ever acknowledge or do anything about.
There are no ordinary moments.
Be kind to yourself. Let go of the negative noise and distortions that color your world in the greys and muted tones that are artificially propagated by lesser thoughts and minds, and machine codes.
Look again.
Solvitur ambulando