He asked me why I’m still writing so much. And I told him that „I HAVE TO DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE!” while also making sure to sound super dramatic and cocky as well.
He looked at me confused and kinda annoyed, because, to be honest, I didn’t even know myself what I was talking about. And maybe because I easily get defensive about this topic, I just wanted to make the reasons behind my writing sound way more meaningful and purpose-driven than they really are.
Because the truth is, I am still super insecure about what it is that I am doing with my life.
Sometimes, it feels like everybody else has already figured that “big question of what they are supposed to do with their life” out a long time ago.
And yet, here I am, still struggling, stumbling and falling, and trying to find what I might find worthy of pursuing myself.
I used to waste so much time finding the one thing I was meant to do, at some point, this whole idea of “meaning and purpose” became clouded and abstract in the process.
So now, more than often, it feels like I am running out of time. I might die tomorrow and never be able to finish my “life’s work.” Heck, I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. What am I actually here for? There is no time left.
Too little time to spend with my loved ones.
Too little time to get the project done.
Too little time to realize that the project doesn’t even matter, but my loved ones do instead.
Too little time to recover all those lost moments in which I got these priorities in the wrong order…
And then I wonder: “Where did all this time go anyway? How did all these precious moments slip right through my fingers and down the sink?”
In some weird sense, I used to believe that I’ll live forever. Or at least my past behavior mirrored this false belief. I thought that “there will always be another time” and so I wasted most of it without a second thought.
It could be true that he, who thinks there’s always enough time to do great things tomorrow, also acts in such ways, and therefore carelessly wastes the endless opportunities that are given to him today.
And it could be true that he, who knows that his days are numbered (which they are) will use every remaining second of the little time he still has left to squeeze as much life out of these precious moments as he can.
And although it’s merely the perspective on time that differs in these examples, the one thing we do for sure is dying. In fact, we do nothing but dying ever since we took our first breath. And ironically, we don’t even know when it will be our last.
With this inevitable uncertainty, we also try to comfort ourselves by thinking that it for sure won’t be any time soon. We push this nasty thought of “being gone for good” into the future, so we don’t have to deal with its overwhelming heaviness right now in this very moment.
Without realizing it, we rob today of its importance and power, and we slowly convince ourselves that there’s always another tomorrow.
We comfort ourselves with the idea that we could manifest whatever greatness might slumber within us at any other day in the future as well. But in real life, before we even realize it, we run out of time, and take all this unmanifested “greatness” to our graves instead.
With this power to “summon the divine,” which we could all tap into, we also have to embrace the responsibility that comes with neglecting it.
Because what happens when we rob the world of our greatest gifts?
If we could cure the world (even if it’s just our own), why wouldn’t we?
If we could lighten up the mood of our loved ones and make their day a tiny bit less tragic, why would we hold back instead?
And if we could treat others (or ourselves at that matter) as someone we are responsible for helping, why shouldn’t we step forward to do so as well?
Only the foolish man keeps all his treasures for himself. He refuses to share his best wine and food with others so at least he himself is well-prepared to not starve to death in winter. And yet, at some point, he dies nonetheless, and then he would have wished to not have pushed all the loved ones out of his life, making his last days even more miserable and lonely than they might have needed to be.
It’s the selfish boy who asks the world: “Why should I help you? You never did anything for me either!”
But it’s the pure man who knows better and wonders how he can be of service instead.
And because the childish boy asks only for what the world could offer to him to please his superficial and egocentric needs, he also never taps into the greatness he could bring out into the world himself. He never takes on the responsibility to make the world a better place (even though he could), and merely wonders why he should even care, as nobody helped him in times in which he was struggling and in pain himself.
But the pure man knows that every great reward in life requires
Still, he doesn’t seek recognition and praise. As he summons his “greatness,” and it manifests through him in this world, he also doesn’t take pride in the rewards his actions might generate (or not). He takes no credit for it because there is nothing he did that he could possibly take credit for.
All he did was to listen to his muse who whispered in his ear. And then obey (or at least not resist).
Lately, I travel a lot for my job. At night, I sit in empty hotel rooms and try to recover from a long day in the office. And as I slow down, and my mind begins to calm down again, I also feel the urge to fill the “emptiness” of my schedule with something else arising from within.
All these years, I kept looking for “my purpose” in all these different places, and yet, it might have been always right in front of my eyes after all.
There was never the need to go on this big journey and look for it as it was always right here and there within my reach.
All I had to do was to go inward, remember what felt right for as long as I can remember, and then also accept it – however “unsexy” it may seem to the outside world.
Because when we allow ourselves to be “bored” with ourselves, our mind also falls back to what stimulates it the most.
And then I feel like “I HAVE TO DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE!”
And I sit down and write.
So maybe I was right about what I said to my friend after all.
