What Should I Do With My Life? (part I)

Edward Center:  I think I'm having my first mid-life crisis.
Woodie Milks:  I've had three.  'Sbout time you got your ass in the game.

What should I do with my life?  Answering that question is one of my core motivations for this journey.  I'm a person of big passion, energy and intensity.  But over the past year my footing became less sure.  I lost trust in my internal compass.  I thought about a job change and I looked at jobs online.  Nothing seemed interesting.  Ed without passion and curiosity?  I don't even know who that is.  My instincts were still right on, though, and they began crying out for change.  There was some drama at work, of course.  But instead of using that drama as a catalyst to nudge me out of my current situation, I saw my confidence started to erode.

Why is confidence so damn fragile?  I've been through many changes in my life - each time I use the same process to get moving again.  And I always do start moving again.  So why do I go through this process of questioning my worth and abilities?  It's such wasted time and energy, but it happens every few years or so.  This particular cycle was a bitch.  I was angry and hurt.  I cried a lot.  For the first time in my life, I lost my ability to sleep regularly.  I would lay there for hours with my mind whirring- it was like my brain had no 'off' switch.  Because of the fatigue, I stopped working out.  I was eating poorly and drinking too much.  I was short-tempered and no fun to be around.

Gradually I found my footing.  Not a direction, mind you, but I regained the ability to stand on my own feet.  I remembered how to take care of myself in the present.  I started running and going to the gym, I cooked healthily, I talked with Chris, I spent time with close friends.  I still couldn't sleep.  And knowing that it took all my energy to care for myself in the present, and trusting that the future would be there when I arrived there, I was able to listen to my instincts.  I quit my job.  I let go and got out.  I ran away.

Years ago my best friend was going through one of the numerous periods of his life where he feels off track and desperate.  He doodled on a Post-It note - numerous small trees that he labeled "forest" and then a stick figure that he captioned, "me.  I'm lost."  It was a highly melodramatic moment that earned our mockery and abuse for years.  But I get the sentiment.  We feel most confident, assured and productive when we have a direction - when our day to day actions are aligned with some sense of greater vision.  I'm so far away from that, but I don't feel lost.  If I don't know the destination, can I really be lost?  I'm moving now and I'm still directionless, but I'm at ease with that, and my steps are sure. 

I've been doing some reading to help spark my thinking.  I've been journaling.  My cousin June has pushed me to read The Unmistakable Touch of Grace by Oprah's life coach Cheryl Richardson.  I can't get through it.  It's just too precious by half.  Although I believe in greater purpose and maybe destiny, I've never been an EverythingHappensForAReason type of guy.

I've found more satisfaction from reading What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson.  It's a collection of stories about people who have been pursued major career and life changes.  I appreciate the semi-journalistic point of view (he gets way too involved for a true journalist), and the stories reveal patterns.  For example, very few people who make major life changes have a clear compelling vision of what to do.  Usually it's a vague, tentative voice with a bit of blurry idea - like the outline of a hazy island across the channel.  I appreciate this, because I have some ideas, but no clear vision yet.

I don't have illusions that the answers are lying here in the jungles and beaches of Southeast Asia.  But I have time to think, time to read, time to reflect and be alone and be open to new possibilities.

In Hong Kong, I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote down the words, "walking prayer."  I don't know what that means.

At night, I sleep soundly.