Every so often I wake up amongst my full and sometimes frantic life wondering what on earth I am doing and how I came to be doing all this stuff. This is not to say that I am discontented in any way, but it does indicate that I have lost a level of connection and intention with myself, my path and perhaps even my purpose. It is both my belief and my experience that an awareness and acknowledgement of these three aspects of my life are key to my ongoing happiness. For me they form the who, the how and the why.
There was a time not so long ago that I didn’t even know who I was. I was just a person doing what was expected of me and what the people around me were doing. I was basically doing what I thought I needed to do in order to fit in and be happy. None of it actually made for a truly happy life and much of it took me further away from myself than I care to remember. It wasn’t until I really tuned in to what made me, and me alone, feel good about myself and about my life that I started to get to know myself. Through this continuing exploration I have made a firm connection with who I am. And I continue to evolve.
Finding my path was a natural progression of knowing myself. Once I knew who I was, it became pretty easy to see if what I was actually doing was in alignment with that. And many things were not. I made difficult decisions to move on from from certain activities and people. I began to seek out things to do, whether they be social, work or otherwise, that reflected the person that I was and the life I wanted to experience. All of this meant letting go of the known world of expectation and stepping into the unknown world of possibility. I didn’t and don’t always get it right, but I always learn something about me and my path in the process. And I continue to evolve.
Understanding my purpose is probably the most elusive for me. It’s reminiscent of the big and indefinable, “Why are we here?” But I feel it is absolutely critical to have some kind of an understanding of our own personal, “Why am I here and what do I have to offer?” I’m starting to think that this aspect actually underlies the who and the how of us all, whether we are aware of it or not. I mean, something is motivating my vision of who I want to be and what I want to be doing with my life, and it is something bigger than personal desire and reward. It is fundamental to my happiness in just being. And with this awareness… I continue to evolve.
So I wake up to the reality and realise that even when I am living my best life, it is in constant evolution. The who, the how and the why will never stay still enough for me to grab a hold of it once and for all. You just can’t hit pause on life in order to take a comfort break. Yet this is exactly what I have attempted to do when I feel lost in the frenzy of my own doing-ness. This doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve lost myself, my path or my purpose… It often just means that I have stopped paying attention. I get carried away with all the doing that makes up my life and forget to check in on how I am being in relation to the who, the how and the why.
So I know that I must maintain a constant connection with the who, the how and the why. I know that I must apply intention to how I am being within these three aspects of my life. And I know that I will never have a definitive answer to any of it. And I continue to evolve.
No Full Stops 