Purpose

We poke and prod around this world, thinking of things in ways we don’t know exist. We create fantasies, drag ourselves down and beat ourselves up, over nothing.

There’s a level to being prepared, developing techniques, and creating a support structure. I think the hardest thing is to admit when you’re wrong. To confess that things aren’t right, to the people that matter most to us. Now it’s hard to do that with the way people react. And understandably it’s one of those things to properly manage, but it comes back to creating the structure, so that you can talk about things and manage them in a way that you just can’t in the worst moments.

It’s hard to lean on a friend who you haven’t spoken to in years (unless you’ve got that kind of relationship). It’s hard to talk to an overzealous parent who hasn’t shared in honest and open conversations very much. It’s hard to engage with a generation who hid things, from everyone. I’m just finding this out. Navigating it has largely been by example. Showing that not everyone has a chip on their shoulder or is alright all the time. It’s the same argument I have with curated social profiles. It just doesn’t make much sense, it’s not real life and it creates in our brains this focus on “perfection” when the only thing perfect is you, with who you are, faults and flaws.

I watched the video above the other day and shared in it. I had been a proponent of gratitude exploration just because of my experience with it. I didn’t know the research. It’s easy for us to look and see external gratification, affirmation and experiences. As I’m sure you know a lot of the best experiences though, have come through you, your mind. It’s the key to unlocking so much of what you do and say. And in that we must find peace.

So like before, how do you work with a mind that’s working against you. What do you do, how do you do it and when? I think the first step is daily practices, like that of gratitude journaling, or self care and self love. For me it’s my three gratitudes, my journaling, my shower, my workout, my work. All of that is what I create of it. Things may change, frequency too, but in general, there’s got to be something to push forward when the times are tough, and have it so well ingrained that it’d be impossible to stop.

In most of this, I just wonder, how I could have done things differently, how my story would have changed, and what could have happened. Because that brings us to the ultimate question of how do I share or provide insight for those on the similar trajectory? How do I boil this down into a structure or series or story to say listen, it’s never as bad as you think it is and never as bad as it could be, except when it is, but even then, the things to come, and some will be hard, it’s all so very worth it.

It’s the relationship we have with it that’s not, it’s the world, the society we function in, we can change, and it will be hard, but we can, and in that there is the meaning and purpose, but even then, you’ve got to search and find your own. Because in that, it is what cannot be taken away, your meaning and purpose, and in that it is yours, it is amazing and beautiful and should be embraced with passion and joy.