“My heart swings back and forth between the need for routine and the urge to run”
Lately the question — How do I succeed? — has been floating through my mind. Now when I say floating, I don’t mean a lazy river, nature viewing, nap taking float. It’s more like a skiff boat that has been pulled into the rip current undertow and bits and pieces that lie afloat are all that remain. How do I succeed? has been pulled under and ripped to shreds by the relentless current of questions that feel like interrogations:
You’re still working there?… When are you going back to school?…Do you want children when you get older?…What are you going to do with your life?
Among all of these daunting questions, How do I succeed? always resurfaces, beaten and bruised but persistent as ever, pulling my eyes open each morning. I need to find a new job by next week. I must to go back to school soon or I’ll never amount to anything. I’ll plan to have children right after graduation to build a happy family. At twenty-something years old I know exactly what path to pursue that will definitely fulfill my life forever! At what point in my life (or yours) did this question go from an aspiring, motivational force to a daunting, fingernail-biting burden?
The more insightful question — Why am I doing this? — often gets overlooked, left behind at the shoreline while I gaze in awe towards the sun, or the endless checklist of goals I have inadvertently set for myself…the 4.0 GPA, landing the big-girl job right after graduation, buying the dream home, having two flawlessly planned children, living out the definition of “success” — perfectly and precisely on time. Why am I doing this? deserves exploration.
Growing up I was told by my parents and mentors: You can be anything you want to be. You can do anything you set your mind to. The world is yours. I believed this when I was eight and I still do. But if you asked me what I wanted to do with my life when I was eight, I would have told you I wanted to become a marine biologist, a doctor or an inventor. Someone big, noteworthy, important — and socially accepted. If you asked me this today, I’d tell you those professions are still in view, but my vision of living slower and simpler, intertwined with nature and my family, allowing love and community to be my priorities, sounds much better. To not long for the degree, the title, the house or the Facebook status-worthy accomplishments of life would be bliss.
When How do I succeed? habitually overlooks Why am I doing this?, it feels as though I am no longer a soul with a destiny of my choice, but a set of skills that should be maximized in order to attain success. For the first time in my twenty-something years, I realized I have never given Why am I doing this? the space it deserves. This is a massive problem. I now recognize I should not feel like a robot living in neutral for the purpose of crossing off to-do lists (and ultimately staying distracted). I mean, come on… I know I’m a boundless entity put on this earth to live out my true purpose. But how? What is my best life? Where do I belong? What do I believe in? Somehow these deep questions that plague me simply disappear under the wrath of my to-do lists each morning… the lists that will bring me closer and closer to “success.”
