We have tremendous potential.
I don’t know what I’m meant to do in life. I feel like there’s so much I haven’t accomplished, but when I look back, my experiences have been varied, and most of them have been memorable. I’ve had some strange jobs. I have two degrees (someone must have made a mistake), and I’ve traveled to places I never thought I’d have an excuse to go to. I’ve been happy, and I’ve also been devastatingly sad. It’s been quite a ride, and through it all, there was always an underlying motive or goal: to figure out what I’m supposed to do while I’m on this planet.
I still don’t know what that’s supposed to be, but I am getting much closer to it than I’ve ever been. There’s been pain and failure along the way. There have been jobs that could have become something more, but they didn’t. I blame my lack of passion, even though passion is something I have in spades. I have passion, and yet, I’ve spent most of my life trying to find a use for it. I haven’t always been the best at pushing through barriers and road blocks when I don’t know what I’m doing, or why I should be doing it. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s the reason I’ve never been able to lie. If you don’t want to do something, if you’re just not into the whole idea of it, the results speak for themselves. So many experiences in my life have taught me that very thing.
I’ve known for some time that I have potential, and I think that we all do. When we realize this about ourselves, the search begins for that one outlet where we can channel all of our focus and energy, where we can feel that we’re doing exactly what we’re capable of. There have been moments of inspiration, moments where i’ve felt like I’m in the right place, but I’ve never been able to hold onto them. Maybe that’s why I’m so consistent with my writing. No matter what’s happened during the day, I am able to come back to my apartment, open up my laptop, and just start typing. That’s the time in the day when I really feel like I’m doing what I’m meant to do.
I have potential to do something in this life, and yet, when you get told that, you’re setting yourself up for a coin flip. Either you’ll fulfill your potential, or you won’t. Suddenly, there’s the pressure to make the most of what you’re given, to capitalize on it in a way that’s productive. If you don’t find an outlet for your passion and drive, then you’ll be forever frustrated by the fact that no matter what you seem to try, you just can’t find the right fit. It’s amazingly frustrating, and maybe at some point, you fall into something that you’re good at, and you stay with it as long as you can. The search can be exhausting. Maybe at some point, you shift your focus to other areas of your life that bring you joy.
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Love should be genuine and in the moment.
We should love the people in our lives, and be able to forgive them when they make mistakes, knowing that we would also want that forgiveness. More than that, we should love people for who they are, not for who we want them to be. People are who they are. They might change, but that change is often gradual, and even if we want to, we can’t ask them to change for us. We should never ask that of them. If they change, it should be because it’s something they want to do. The impetus has to come from the inside, not from without.
We can’t tell people who they are to become. We have to love them for who they are, despite their flaws, whether the flaws are real, or the flaws are perceived. We like to think we know what’s best for people, and while we sometimes do, the reality is that when we offer people advice, rarely do we know all of the pertinent information, if we ever do. There’s more happening inside someone’s mind than we realize. The best that we can do is support those we love, and hope that they find what truly makes them happy and fulfills them. Happiness is what we should truly want, both for others and for ourselves.
No one needs any additional pressure, not when we’re all struggling through each and every day. So many of us are just muddling our way through, trying out different things and hoping that they make sense. Love and support from the ones we care about most will drive us to become better and more improved version of ourselves. Everyone’s journey is their own, and the worst thing we could do is to interfere with someone else’s process, knowing that no two people will ever be the same, and that people need to do and to chose what’s best for them. People in our lives may make the same mistakes we did, and we need to know that that’s okay. Sometimes, you just have to witness something for yourself.
It’s a beautiful thing to accept someone for who they are. That acceptance can be liberating, and it can help someone feel comfortable enough in their own skin to go out into the world with confidence. It can help them be ambitious and driven enough to go after the things they want. Pressure to become someone else, to conform to someone else’s image or ideal, it can lead to happiness, but more often it leads to complete frustration. Be the kind of person who grants someone their freedom from having to become anything, and let them figure it out for themselves. We need to let go of this control that so many of us crave, and to trust that the people in our lives who are figuring it out, that they will get to where they want to go, even if they don’t know where that is just yet. Thanks for reading.
adam's blog about life 