“There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
Thomas Merton
We have all felt it. That feeling of certainty coursing through us. A certainty in our abilities to achieve anything. A vital energy that convinces us that we’re ready to turn the impossible into reality. Those moments in which we glimpse our power as individuals are rare, but they are important. Because it is only then that we truly know what we are capable of.
So many of us are dissatisfied with our lives. Some of us have jobs that slowly erase the memory of who we are or want to be. Others have people in their lives who erode their self-belief, while there are those who have built lives around themselves that they feel they can’t escape.
And the feelings that accompany the knowledge that you aren’t leading the life you’re meant to affects you in so many ways. You’re tired, anxious, worn out. You struggle to find the energy to do anything other than forget your life. And you spend your free time distracting yourself. You shop, binge watch, scroll, drink; anything to help you forget that you were meant to be somewhere and someone else.
The excuses
And there are so many excuses to not act. The stories we tell ourselves so that we don’t change direction are as thick as treacle. They cling to us and make change feel like something that requires all the effort in the world. And all the excuses, they all sound so true and so reasonable, making all our wants and desires seem selfish and reckless.
- I’m not good enough to make a living doing that.
- I’ll have to go back to university to get the right qualification.
- I’ll be putting my kids futures’ at risk.
- I don’t want to hurt them.
- I am being selfish.
- I’m too old.
- I’m too young.
- If I “reframe” it, then I won’t have to change.
- I’ll never be as senior or earn as much doing that other thing as I do now.
- I need all the friends I can get.
- Splitting up wouldn’t be fair to the children.
- I’ll be less important.
The truth
You are a very poor version of yourself when you are unhappy with your life. Not showing up as the best version of you robs everyone from knowing who you really are and of what you are capable. I’ve seen this in myself. People who’d known me for years looking at me, perplexed. They see me, but something is missing, as if the best parts of me have been infected or damaged.
And, most importantly, when you’re living a life that is not your own, you aren’t who you need to be for your children. Because you’re modelling that compromising who you are is required and acceptable. That being unhappy should be endured, and that change isn’t possible.
My father
He died when he was 54. For most of his life he had done a job that he was very good at, but that stressed him out, and didn’t make him joy. But he was lucky. The perfect opportunity for change, that so many people wait for and which never arrives, actually arrived for my old man.
He quit his job, and for a bit more than 4 years he spent experimenting, deciding what his perfect day might look like, understanding what he wanted to make and do with the time he had. And for those few years my father was a very different man to the one I had known growing up. He was kinder, more present.
And then a week before his 55th birthday, he died.
So, what will it to take?
What will get you to change your life? Do you need a health scare, a cancer diagnosis? Maybe something must happen to you before you’ll make that change, like being fired. Perhaps one of those rare moments when you feel and glimpse the power that you have inside you will push you to do what you need to do. Or maybe it will be reading this that gets you there.
Whatever it is, I truly hope that you find the courage to live the life you want. Because we are all walking around shining like the sun. Thing is, so very few of us know this.