There’s a common theme that comes up when people talk about their lives, and it goes something like this: ‘Life turned out like nothing I expected it would be.’
Soon after we’re launched into adulthood and get our first true taste of independence, for most of us, our expectations for life start to clash with what we’re seeing in front of us. As a result, we start to experience disappointment, frustration, and resistance to the reality we found ourselves in.
Where does this common disappointment with the way our lives play out comes from?
Were we told lies about what life will be once we grow up or did we miss the meaning? Maybe the message was right, but the delivery was wrong. Perhaps our sources of wisdom and guidance weren’t as wise as they appeared.
Maybe it was a mixture of all.
What’s your guide to life made of?
What most of us got was a very specific, a very definite user guide to life. A guide with the aim of ensuring we create the best possible life, with a foreword that says:
‘Just follow the script, and you’ll be good.’
A single guide was given to the entire collective, while the collective consists of individuals who are built in different ways, each one resulting with a unique face, and plethora of individual traits that turns us into complexity far greater than what we can comprehend.
We hand out a guide that offers definite answers, when the only thing it should be providing is a set of right questions.
This disappointment and resistance with the way life played out is a result of the wrong idea we got as young people, that we keep dragging throughout adulthood.
Nobody explained to us that the only way we can build a life designed for who we are as individuals is not by repeating someone else’s answers, but by asking ourselves the right questions.
Questions that will guide you towards the discovery of what you are made of.
Questions that will teach you how to navigate life from your point of view.
Question that will help you hear and develop your voice.
Questions that will offer answers upon which you’ll build the foundations of the life you’re proud to call your own.
Level of usefulness is reflected by the level of individuality
There isn’t a blueprint for creating a successful life. The closest we got to it are universal questions that draw out the answers from which we can extract practical steps that can lead us towards our individual destinations.
No matter how securely it can provide safety in certain areas, a script designed for somebody else, robs us of any possibility to reach our highest potential. It is the most unsafe place we can put one another in.
The way to make ourselves useful to people around us, and find purpose and meaning, isn’t by trying to shape ourselves into something we aren’t, but by developing and excelling the best and most individual parts of us, and offering them to places where they are both needed and appreciated.
A force of nature we often forget about
You may not have the ultimate control, but on the spectrum of forces that enter your life, there is a segment reserved only for your input.
You get to have a say.
You get to ask, investigate, and seek.
You get to be selective.
You get to run your life, as it was given to you.
Becoming more of who you are
Our lives can never become a reflection of our individuality, and we can never fully know how great it could be, if we suppress who we are.
Don’t trade off your peace for the safe arrival to the wrong destination. No matter how much uncertainty it entangles, there is far more safety found in holding on to the single thread of possibility for creating a life you are proud of living and calling your own.
Life may have turned out different than what you expected it to be, but with your focus aimed at the right things, it can become so much more than you ever thought could possibly be.
