I’m searching. You’re searching. We’re all searching.
Maybe not all the time. Maybe you’ve given up. Or maybe you’ve found it.
Or maybe I’m here, we’re here for the moment, for today. Then, gone tomorrow.
Still looking. Still searching. What next?
It’s almost the new year, and as I look back at some of the choices I made for the previous year, I ask myself:
“Why?”
“What was is all for?”
And answer I did. Only the answers kept getting deeper and deeper.
And the answers also brought new questions with them.
What makes you want certain things in your life?
At the end of the day, what are we looking for?
Born Whole, Grown Lacking
Somehow, life becomes a journey to be whole.
When I was very, very young, I didn’t have a care in the world. I was lucky to have a childhood that provided for a lot of my needs. I was able to go to school, and had both parents.
In that way, I am lucky. I was blessed with a lot.
But behind all of that, life still comes up with ways of challenging you.
School wasn’t fun for me. I hated going to school.
But I loved learning. I loved reading, finding out how stuff works, and where they came from. I loved discovering something new, how it makes sense for me, and how I can apply it in my life. I loved to learn.
What wasn’t fun, was all of the structure and boredom that school gave me. To survive, I had to please my teachers, my classmates, and my parents. All in the chase for numbers higher than 92%.
I also learned some important life lessons, one of which was making the most out of what life gives you. But my school experience also taught me that I wasn’t any good if I didn’t have good grades. That life is about making sure you stay within the rules and just say yes to whatever the teacher/authority figure hands you.
That success is doing what people tell you to do. And them telling you you’re doing good.
And what about the school bullies? My experience in dealing with them has taught me that people can be downright cruel and mean, for whatever reason. That people won’t readily support each other, especially when there are people different from them. In how they act, feel, look, and think.
And those lessons, and beliefs, for the longest time, have informed how I feel, behave, and act.
Looking back, I didn’t like what I was doing. Because of my experiences, I kept looking for acceptance, for the feeling of success, for a supportive community, and even for perfect grades and evaluations. I went to great lengths, even at great personal cost, to get these.
Because I thought it was what I needed.
I thought it would complete me.
Searching For What’s Missing
Our experiences teach us lessons which may not be necessarily true.
They beat into us feelings, emotions, patterns of thinking that we feel we need to survive, but are actually stopping us from growing into more of who we are.
They keep us fixed, unresourceful, fearful, and powerless.
And these keep us looking for what would make us feel better, what we feel is missing in our lives, what would make our lives more meaningful.
Out of school, I was always looking for situations where I would be wanted, where I would be needed. I felt that this would give me the acceptance and success that I was looking for, being a valued member of a group.
Only to be burdened by work, taken for granted, given a hard time, and not be paid what I was worth. But I stayed, for longer than what I should have, because there was a need in me being filled.
I complained a lot, thinking that it would make me feel better and help me deal with my emotions.
I stayed in the company of people who weren’t really good people, because I felt they accepted me.
I stayed in bad jobs, under bad leadership, with bad pay, because they were telling me I was doing a good job.
I was afraid of trying new stuff, because I was afraid of not being seen as competent and capable.
Babies don’t have these fears and beliefs. Very young children don’t have a lot of these beliefs.
We were born whole, but grew up being taught we were lacking.
Searching For What’s Missing
Some people, spend their whole life in the search to be whole. In the search to feel complete.
We were born complete, whole. A little miracle.
Life then challenges us, and takes away parts of us and scatters them all over, for us to find them again, and again if need be.
And most of the time, what we’re looking for outside of us, was inside of us after all.
We’ll never get the forgiveness, acceptance, the love, the gratitude, and the achievement, all of it from others. We have to learn to give ourselves those as well. To forgive ourselves. To accept and love ourselves, to be grateful for ourselves and what we have, and to learn to recognize, accept, and celebrate our own achievements.
We’re still complete, after all this time. We just don’t know it, we don’t feel it, we don’t believe it.
And the journey to believing again, is a journey worth taking.
Somehow, life is a journey to be whole, again.
What do you do to feel “whole”, or “complete?”, Please share in the comments below!
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