@michaelwithana (Twitter)
There’s a conversation that I had with a friend last week that has been swimming around in my head, wondering if there was a blog post to come from it. Then I saw this tweet this morning and I saw it as a sign to “just start writing.”
My friend has a daughter in her early twenties who is going through one of those existential crises, where she is utterly unsure about every decision she has made in her life thus far. The daughter opined to her mother that she felt that every decision she has made thus far, in her young adult life, was because she was following the opinions and directions of others. Her strong will to please others had superseded the will to get to know herself, and to follow her own direction in life. And she felt unhappy and unsure with her current station in life, yet she had no idea what direction she wanted to take next. After my friend told me about this discussion she had with her daughter, she and I almost immediately said at the same time, “What woman hasn’t experienced these feelings at least once in her life? ”
Probably most young people, no matter what their pronouns (my kids would be so proud of me for putting it this way. . . I’m growing . . . .I’m learning) experience this “What am I doing? What is my purpose?” crisis as they grow up, and move out of their childhoods. I remember a time when my eldest son, who was a sophomore in college at the time, called me, in pure angst, declaring, “I just don’t want to be “a suit”, Mom. I can’t end up being “a suit”!” I believe that I said something like, “Well, knowing strongly what you don’t want, can help you to pivot that, to what you do want. If you don’t want to be “a suit”, you do know that you want a career in which you don’t have to don a suit.” On an aside, he’s now a successful tech guy. I think that he only has worn his one and only suit at the very occasional wedding, interview and funeral.
Lately, it has struck me, as we have been getting more Christmas cards with address changes than we have gotten in a long time, that my husband and I are entering into one of these transitional times in life, when this type of existential crisis starts rearing its ugly head again. Kids are growing up, and leaving the nest. Friends are retiring or changing career paths, while downsizing or changing their lifestyles completely. The sometimes mindless, yet purposeful formula that we have been following (and the formula that most of our contemporaries have been following) is coming to a close, as it enters into a wide open, blank-spaced new chapter in our lives. And that’s daunting. Exciting, but daunting. This stage in life starts churning up an angsty, but undirected sense of urgency. As previous ironclad objectives and goals come to a close, the time has come for imaginative pondering and wandering into wide open possibilities.
Before writing this blog post, I read a few articles about getting to know yourself, but I liked this question set, written by Farnoosh Brock, the best. It really helps get the contemplative juices flowing (taken verbatim from this article: https://www.prolificliving.com/get-to-know-yourself/)
- What activity in your life lights you up with joy?
- What is something you always love doing, even when you are tired or rushed? Why?
- If a relationship or job makes you unhappy, do you choose to stay or leave?
- What do you fear about leaving a bad job or a bad relationship?
- What do you believe is possible for you?
- What have you done in your life that you are most proud of?
- What is the thing that you are second most proud of?
- What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?
- How does your being here in the universe change humanity for the better?
- If you could have one single wish granted, what would it be?
- How comfortable are you with your own mortality?
- What is your highest core value?
- To your best knowledge, how do other people perceive you?
- How would you like others to perceive you?
- How confident are you in your abilities to make decisions for yourself?
- What is your biggest self-limiting belief?
- Who is the most important person in your life?
- Who is your greatest role model?
- Who is a person that you don’t like yet you spend time with?
- What is something that is true for you no matter what?
- What is your moral compass in making difficult decisions?
- What is one failure that you have turned into your greatest lesson?
- What role does gratitude play in your life?
- How do you feel about your parents?
- How is your relationship with money?
- How do you feel about growing old someday?
- What role has formal education played in your life and how do you feel about it?
- Do you believe your destiny is pre-determined or in your hands to shape however you wish?
- What do you believe is the meaning of your life?
No matter what your age, or stage in life, I think that these questions are interesting and vital and an excellent pathway to better understand yourself and what is meaningful and vital to you. Pick just one question and play with it today. Maybe journal about it. Be curious about yourself. You might be surprised by the answers that float to the surface. You might even learn something new and interesting about yourself. You might even fall just a little bit in love with yourself. Knowing yourself intimately makes the loving yourself thing, a whole lot easier.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.