Finding Yourself is a Continuous Journey
I’ve known you for decades. So familiar, so relatable, yet somewhat new and slightly different every year. As if I was rereading an unfinished manuscript where chapters were constantly added and edited.
Every time we talk I realise how some things you say and believe no longer resonate with me. Nevertheless each time you surprise me with new shades that I haven’t noticed before.
And the older I get, the more I realise that getting to know you is a journey that will end only when the last breath has escaped my lungs.
“Finding” myself has been a subject of pondering ever since I started gaining some form of self awareness. Who am I? What do I want to do during this lifetime? How can I contribute and make myself useful? What is my purpose?
These questions are like the ebb and tide of my mind – coming and going in accord to their own schedule. Even more so since I’ve come to the realisation that drug trafficking wasn’t my dream job after all.
Times and times again I thought that I’ve found myself. In the most unexpected places I thought to myself
“Okay. Now I’ve found it. I’ve found my calling.”
All that just to later realise I only found a fraction of who I am. And that only through stripping away all that I wasn’t.
For the longest time I used to think that finding “the self” was something everyone did at some point. I thought it happened once and that from there on life became much clearer. Yet after multiple changes of heart I started to question the way I was thinking.
“Maybe my worldview is too rigid? Maybe things are more dynamic than I think?”
To test my hypothesis I decided to consult with some older and more experienced people. Even though our experiences differ, they’ve spent more time on this earth and so they should have had more time to observe themselves and their surrounding.
Gladly I was right, but not in a way that I expected.
After talking to a multitude of older and more socially successful people and reading some biographies of people that have inspired me at one point or the other. I found out that indeed my outlook on finding myself was a bit narrow and naive. I remember momentary confusion and inner conflict.
“So I’m not going to find myself once and focus on building that person into something…”
Yet that confusion was short lived. A sensation of peace washed over me as the understanding that nothing is written in stone sank in my being. And light excitement followed as I realised that during this lifetime I’ll be able to continuously explore and rediscover the thing I label as I. I don’t have to be one thing. I can be whatever resonates with me, just at different periods.
Another thing that helped me get out of my obsession with finding myself was reading about some of the well known successful people. Mainly it was the fact that most of those people found their success later on in life.
Some made it in their thirties, some in their forties and some in their sixties. It was especially relaxing to see that those who had impacted their surrounding the most were the people that found their passion after multiple failures.
In addition I spent some time getting to know some people whoo led more simple lives. Thanks to them I started to see the beauty in places where I previously didn’t.
In all honesty, my personal obsession with finding myself was strongly rooted in my upbringing. The qualities I observed in my parents and what they taught me as I was growing up. But to be clear, that mostly influenced my general desire to be valued for my skills and me choosing productivity over leisure.
Yet another strong factor that affected me personally (and I think it could have affected many others) was social media and the so called “hustle culture” that has been spreading for quite a while. The funniest part is that at first I didn’t even notice how observing those things on Instagram and Facebook made me think and act differently.
I thought that I had to work all the time. That I had to become more and more efficient every day and that I didn’t deserve to rest unless I had accomplished something valuable. I looked at all those teenagers and young adults with expensive cars and houses. I looked at social media influencers and how they traveled all the time.
Back in the day I didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes and by the time I did know – those notions were already rooted so deeply in my understanding of the world, that I was unable to separate myself from them.
Nevertheless journaling, talking to people and just becoming more experienced made me look at myself more critically and allowed me to attain a better understanding of myself as well as the world around me. Of course my perspective is yet to change a thousand times, yet I feel like I made an important step that in turn will help me navigate through life better and with more joy.
Finding oneself is a continuous journey and it should be enjoyed and approached as an adventure. It’s not as much about the destination where we think we want to arrive.
It’s more about the journey we undertake, the things we explore and the experiences we get to share with people that surround us. It’s about discovering yourself. About letting go of all the burdens that were bestowed upon us and learning to express ourselves in ways that make us happy and allow us to feel valued in our communities.
Life is an oxymoron – it’s simple and yet so complicated. At times it gets ugly, but even then overarching beauty of existence can be noticed. There’s no pre defined or hidden meaning of life and I find that beautiful. How can it not be? Each one of us has the ability to choose our own meaning, our own mission and the way we journey towards it.
Follow on social media
Other articles
Author: Alex
I’ve spend a decade working in advertising, social media and cultural industries, which have given me great insights into what’s going on behind the scenes.