There’s a hunger, a spiritual hunger, that’s easy to feel but harder to feed.
Especially when you’ve learned to achieve highly, or make the right moves, or the smart choices.
It’s what swells up in you when you’re sitting in a meeting about quarterly goals and suddenly feel like crying because none of it matters.
When you’re surrounded by the people who never fail to make you laugh or give you validating “advice” but don’t——can’t——actually understand you.
When you’re performing, hoping, wishing, daydreaming——off-course and back to a place you never planned to be, or on-course and in a place your heart knows is wrong.
It’ll inspire a sort of cosmic question: what are we even doing here?
And then there’s the raging fire that is this period in time. When the world itself feels big, urgent, when you feel overwhelmed and numbed by knowing what’s wrong, but at the same time feeling frozen in place, or like you’re going through the motions… where do you go?
You might completely check out—binge watching, scrolling, numbing. You might get into this state of anxious hyper-vigilance, where you feel like you need to fix everything right now. To do something, anything. To speak out or just be aware.
Part of you might wonder if that external chaos is an invitation to go deeper inward, or if that’s a form of running from problems that require your attention…
And here’s the truth.
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re standing at the edge of an ocean at night. You hear the rush of the waves, and in the dark above you, the stars are many, but not enough for you to see what’s in front of you.
Despite the dark, something tells you the water is safe, and right. You know it’s safe, and you know you’re supposed to go in. But you also know that if you go in, something might change. About you. About your life. And you’re scared of what that something might be.
More than that, you’re scared of not knowing, and leaving what you do know behind.
But what if what you know is the problem? What if the things you learned to work hard for, to feel good about, to spend your time on, to want——are born of the same things that left you hungry?
What if some of the things you learned to avoid, mistrust, or fear, are the same things that could have helped the world hurt less? You hurt less?
What if what’s behind you isn’t just sand, but fire?
Suddenly, the ocean becomes much more inviting.
And that’s the truth of it. No amount of planning, building, dating with “intention” will make up for what’s broken in the framework from which you do it.
No amount of working on yourself or waiting around will bring you any closer to why you were put on this earth, if you’re only willing to do it from the imagined safety of the shore.
Sometimes, you have to leave your assumptions behind. Sometimes, you have to understand what is real, and what is keeping you from seeing it. Sometimes, you need change——and there is very little comfort in that. But there can be safety.
The key is, before you dive in, take a look behind you. Remind yourself what’s broken.
Let yourself see the ridiculousness, the meaninglessness, of that work meeting——you don’t have to say it out loud, but don’t shove that feeling away.
Let yourself understand that the smiling people around you can be cherished and appreciated for who they are——but they can also be released for who they’re not.
Let yourself understand that what you’re feeling about where your life is going is not a mistake. It’s a reality. A warning or an encouragement. An invitation.
Sometimes, you have to sit with what’s broken, to feel it for what it truly is, to muster the courage to walk towards what changes, and what heals.
And then you have to take the first step——not go running in, but just that first step, and then the second, and then the third, into that change. More on this, soon.
