Maybe it’s just me, maybe it’s the stage of life (what is ‘just on the other side of 30 called these days?), maybe it’s the stage(s) of life of people around me, or simply my heightened sensitivity to a certain topic. The ‘topic’ seems to be all around. It is hard to define, because it is a feeling.. a collective sigh.
It is a sense of restlessness, sometimes taking on proportions of crises. Adolescence crisis, quarter-life crisis, mid-life crisis… “I need a cat in my life,” crisis; “I need a new job,” crisis; “How many kids is enough kids?” crisis; “Will I get fit this year?” crisis; “What am I really doing in my life?” crisis.
These everyday questions acquire the title of crises thanks to the accompanying sense of desperation and rising panic.. Some of us push the thoughts out of our minds, others dive into over-analysis (and eventual paralysis of decision-making), and a vast majority of us simply go with the flow- typically with small compensatory actions thrown in. I am not yet that far along in my journey to know if the crisis ever goes away by any of these tactics, but I suspect not.
While on the face of it, we have more freedom than ever before to craft a life that is uniquely meaningful for us, it is also true that the vast majority of us will eventually follow a life template quite similar to others around us and before us. Only we will live in this template being more miserable than our predecessors because we thought we had a choice.
I believe that these crises are real calls for change- either in one’s mindset or in one’s reality. Both, however, become increasingly difficult to examine/ change as we progress further along in life.
There is a thriving self-help industry (not to forget the daily whatsapp forwards) dedicated to guiding us on how to live our life and how to make major life decisions- the problem is much of it is simplistic, prescriptive, and contradictory.
To take an example: A popular self-help question is, “What would you do, if you knew you will die tomorrow?” Well, this is crappy advice because we actually don’t know how long one’s life is. If I were to die tomorrow, I wouldn’t let my loved ones out of my sight for a single moment, and probably donate all my money and belongings to charity. But if I eventually ended up living another 50 years, my loved ones will be mighty sick of my insecurity, and I will be very resentful about having no money or belongings.
There is sure enough a completely opposite self-help question as well. “When you are 80 years old, what would you rather that you had done?” This is again a misguided question because you know what? I have no idea what kind of a person I will be at 40, let alone at 80. I already value things quite differently at 31 than I did at 25.
The only point in time when one can make a decision is now. Whenever that now is. The only way to know if a decision works, is to try it. I know of a couple who designed their life for a decade around a plan to move to another country (which they visited every year), with detailed plans involving Gantt charts, learning the local language, mingling with the community etc. When they finally made the move, within three months it was clear to them that they wanted to return to their home country.
Perhaps you already know ‘what’ you need to do in your heart of hearts (even if not yet, regard with suspicion anyone who claims they have the answer for you). Perhaps you don’t have the full picture of what your desired action actually entails.
As for the ‘how’- more often than not, it is about balancing conflicting desires. It seems daunting or mysterious, if not impossible.
Where is the guidance to take meaningful action in the now, knowing that you have no idea what will happen as a result? What to do and how?
I recently read about Roger Bannister who broke the ‘four-minute barrier’ for running a mile, in 1954. This barrier was considered an insurmountable challenge by serious runners since 1886. And while not a single runner had managed to achieve this in 7 decades leading up to 1954, a second runner was able to do it less than 2 months after Bannister showed that it could be done! Thousands have done it since.
We learn from each other. We define our goals and our limits from what we see around us. Our lives resemble others’ in our awareness.
I am curious to see more broadly, and more closely. I am curious to listen to people who have tried, and are trying; who have succeeded, and those who have not; who have re-routed in their quest to craft a meaningful life for themselves in ways big and small…
I think it gives me a chance to know more deeply the people I know, to ask them questions which may otherwise seem annoying, and perhaps even to get to know people I may not know at all. And I look forward to sharing some of these on my blog Slow Living under a series called ‘My-Way’.
Slow Living has always been about finding meaning in experiences and learning from them. I have been doing it so far focusing inward and examining my own experiences. With My-Way, I also open up a broader field of vision, and the thought makes me smile 🙂
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