It’s a crazy world we’re living in, and it’s really easy to get lost in it.
From the 24 hour news cycle to the constant bombardment of social media, we’ve become a population with unfathomable information at our fingertips, yet so much of what we take in from our screens and our headphones is trying to convince us that we need to be that which are not.
In the midst of all the noise, we often lose the art of listening to ourselves.
From the moment we’re born, the world has a role for us, and an idea of what we should be. Depending on where you live, and the circumstances you are born into, you may have a life all mapped out for you before you are able to stand. From whom you will marry to what you will do for work; from the clothes you will wear to the foods you consume.
The culture we are born into can sometimes be a prison to our souls.
And yet as children we go along with this, because we know nothing else. We hope that the adults around us have our best interests at heart, and we try to fit in, because standing out as a child often leads to ridicule and pain. So we like the things we are taught to like, and we do the things we are taught to do.
Yet rarely are we asked if these things resonate with us, and truly feed our souls.
The conformity that we are taught as children, often with the best of intentions, usually comes at the price of our individuality and the freedom we so desperately need.
If we are truly honest with ourselves, I don’t think there is a single one of us who is born into a situation that perfectly fitted our own wants and desires.
Probably because we had no idea what they really were.
And sure, those change over time, but as kids we are expected to find joy in the things that everybody does, and for some of us, (especially if you’re the kind of person who reads this work) the everyday things just don’t fill our souls. Were looking for something deeper, something more meaningful, something that has purpose and value and a little bit of magic.
And when we discover it, we realize we’ve been looking for it all along.
You’ll know it when you find it, because it stirs something deep and abiding within you. Since we’re friends, I’ll share with you that in the early days of writing this work, I had somebody reach out and tell me that had she read what I had posted that day a year or so beforehand, she wouldn’t have tried to kill herself.
I still remember how it felt to read that comment, and the mixture of emotions that followed.
My deep sadness that she had ever felt that way, and my immense gratitude that in some way I had been able to make a small difference.
In the days that followed, more people left comments that they had been helped, and what began essentially as a project to try and express some of my own feelings turned into a pathway of meaning and service, and eventually to me finding one of the truths of my soul... that I exist to serve, and that the joy and deep meaning that I find from doing this work are some of the things that make life worth living.
And I came to understand that we find ourselves by doing, and seeing how we feel about it.
Which is not what we’re taught as children. I’m guessing nobody set you down when you were five years old and asked you to really search your feelings and see how you felt about everything.
In my experience, children are rarely taught to truly think and feel for themselves, and I think that’s where we go wrong as a society and as people.
Because you have a right to experience your life in a way that brings you meaning. Not because of someone else’s beliefs, or the dogma of their own devotion, but to truly find out what resonates with your soul and to pursue that as long as hard as you want to.
I truly believe that people who have found their own truth and are living it are the peacemakers of the world, for they do not require others to behave in a way that suits them, rather they desire everybody to live in a way that truly fills their soul.
If you found what works for you, I am so glad and encourage you to live every day chasing after that which helps you find yourself.
If you haven’t, I hope you haven’t stopped looking at. Sometimes it takes a while to truly discover who you are, but once you get there, I believe you will feel that the journey was worth it.
May you find yourself every day, and may you live your truth more deeply, and more profoundly.
That we may all find ourselves and find peace together.
Always.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings