There’s this feeling, sometimes, that’s hard to shake.
Like there’s another version of yourself, trying to emerge, but you keep pulling back from it because it feels too much. Too intense. Too different from who you’ve been.
It’s like you can sense it in quiet moments. The you who speaks truth even when your voice is shaky. Who follows spiritual hungers even when they lead somewhere unconventional. Who doesn’t apologize for going a different way.
But then your practical mind kicks in. Suddenly, the question spiral begins:
- How would you even function in the world?
- Where would the money come from?
- What would others think?
How do you know the difference between a genuine spiritual calling to change your life or do something drastic, and just being dramatic or running away from responsibility?
Because, especially when the world is in upheaval, you might feel pulled to make some pretty radical changes. Like:
- Leaving situations that look good on paper but feel spiritually deadening.
- Finally pursuing things you’ve always talked yourself out of because they’re too impractical.
- Pulling away from certain people or social dynamics that you’ve invested in, or grown used to, but are very clearly holding you back.
Sometimes that pull, that need to escape, is how your body interprets the genuine need for spiritual rebirth. And the way that you know, without blowing up your life for the wrong reasons, is actually quite simple:
Thinking in lifetimes.
When you think in days, or months, or years—as the society we live in often forces you to—you see the wave, and miss the ocean.
The wave is the moment, running, passing.
The ocean is the constant whole. Real. Extant.
One day, when the time comes—when your mind is a little more forgetful, your bones a little more achy, and the future more about what you did than what you might still do—you’ll look back.
And frankly, you won’t remember, and if you do remember, you won’t care about, just one week, or one month.
You’ll ache over what you didn’t do. What you never tried. Who you never became.
The life you didn’t live.
Everything you wonder now—if you let yourself keep wondering—you will still wonder about then. Only, it’ll be too late to do anything about it.
It doesn’t always take that long, either. There are moments of clarity hidden across life. Grief, heartbreak, possibility. Change. Moments that teach you:
Everything you settle for. Everything you aren’t willing to take a risk for. All the careful calculations, and safety nets, and socially-learned assumptions—time makes those disappear.
And when they disappear, you’re suddenly thinking in lifetimes.
The secret: don’t wait. Don’t wait until the earth-shattering moment, or the natural time, where you can’t think in any other way but in lifetimes.
Start. Do it now. Think now. Change now.
Even if you have to wait, for practical reasons. Even if you can’t tell anyone, because no one really gets it. You can take the little steps that prepare you to be somewhere else or someone else in a year’s time. To take the chance on change.
Because sometimes, even if you don’t know what’s on the other side of where you’re going, it’s clear what’s on the other side of where you’re staying.
Moments keep you busy. They are the pieces. Lifetimes keep you whole. They are the puzzle.
When you don’t consider the lifetime, you end up wasting it.
Don’t be afraid to think bigger, just because it’s harder.
