Every morning I stare at a tall-standing white rectangle, sip my coffee and walk through the back of my mind. One morning, as my brain started to churn, I noticed something in the toolbar of Microsoft Word.
Taken outside the context of Word, I thought this was a powerful question that most of us have probably heard before.
“What do you want to do?”
“What do you want to be?”
“Where do you want to go?”
When I was asked these questions, I didn’t give the answers too much thought. I was either too naïve to understand the importance and value of this sense of direction, or I was too preoccupied with things like getting out of the house, hanging out with friends, and having a good time. That’s on me though.
To be fair, I’m not even sure these concepts can be digested by the immature brain. When I was younger I don’t think I had the life experience necessary to reflect on the relationship between self-direction and outcome of pursuit. That being said, I wonder how things might be different had I comprehended the weight of these questions earlier on. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for everything I’ve got and I’m in a great place right now. But, at the same time, I feel like there’s something missing.
I think we all have a voice or two in our head that reminds us that there is more the world has to offer, that we can do more, that we can be more. These voices speak to us in many ways, but always convey a sense of hunger. Over the years I’ve grown real close with this hunger. I’ve begun to prioritize time to feed this appetite.
First, I try to understand what I’m craving – it could be a physical or mental challenge, a block of time to nurture creativity, hammer on a craft, or build relationships with nature, friends, and family. Then, I just get started down the path in that general direction. I try do this on a daily basis. It’s becoming more and more important to me and I feel stronger every day. I feel more like myself than I ever have before. I really believe that thoughts become things and that our perceptions shape our realities. Most days I feel pretty tuned in to what I’m hungry for, but other days when I’m not so sure I just ask myself what could I do? What might I do to change my situation and get myself headed off in a right direction?
The constant push and pull of life affects us all, it’s easy to get after it when everything’s going well but where will your resolve be when the going gets tough? That’s when your thoughts and actions really begin to count, when you’re in between a rock and a hard place and you have to continue moving forward. There’s a quote by Alexis Carrel that I like to remind myself of – “To progress again, man must remake himself. And he cannot remake himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor. In order to uncover his true visage he must shatter his own substance with heavy blows of his hammer.”
Denying your hunger is like spitting in your own face, for it is this hunger that paves the way to your truest self. We all know it’s there, the question is what are you going to do about it? Are you going to feed that hunger or are you going to let it starve?
