Man, these last couple of months have been a lot for me. I feel like I have lost myself, forgotten who I am and what I am living for. I have gone through periods of uncertainty, anger, and sadness, and have come dangerously close to hopelessness. I think back to my life journey and all the things that I have gone through and experienced to get here.
And when I think back to my past, I feel a vast disconnect from the person I used to be. Last year at this time, I was on an immense spiritual journey, waking up every day eager to continue on the path of becoming the best person that I could be. I had a flow, an aura to me that felt like I was walking with God himself. When I think back to that and then come to the present, all I can think is, “What happened?”
What happened to the kid that got excited to better himself? What happened to the kid that couldn’t contain his smile? What happened to the kid that felt like he had his whole life ahead of him?
These days, my anxiety has gotten the best of me. I feel as though there is always something that I am worrying about. Lately, a lot of that worry has come from my future and what I am going to do for the rest of my life. I love where I am at right now, but what’s the next step? Like, what am I actually going to do for a living? Not one single answer conjures in my mind.
I feel as though I am getting bored by the things that used to motivate me, as though I am starting to get into a cycle of being stuck and doing nothing about it. Worst of all, I’ve been feeling emotionless. Like I am just here in the world existing, but not living. That is everything that I have been working so hard to avoid. Yet here I am.
The way that I see it now, my time to do what I love might be limited. I really don’t know. I hope not. I don’t want to stop doing what I love. I am living my dream every single day, whether I realize it or not. But damn, I am broke. I don’t have savings. If an emergency ever happened, I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
It’s not the money that hurts for me. Money is money, although I truly do want to make enough money to be comfortable and completely independent. What hurts me the most is it means that I may not be able to continue living the way that I am now. That scares the hell out of me. I don’t know specifically what I want to do with my life.
Well, I take that back. I do. I want to skate. I want to travel the world. I want to make grown folk type of money. I want a family. I want to be well known for making a positive impact on the world. But as I write this, I fully understand that only a select few people get to do all those things. It seems to me that I may have to sacrifice of one or more of my ambitions. And that truly breaks my heart.
…
I don’t know much. I still have a shit ton of questions that need answering. But I do know one thing. Life is a game, and in most games, there are setbacks that keep you from winning. And just like a game, you must persevere through those setbacks so that you can keep going forward. Life is unfair, life is suffering, life is hard. Life is fair, life is joy, life is easy. The only thing we can do is stay the course and keep pushing forward. And although for many of us, it seems like life is getting really real right now. The truth is that it’s just starting. And it’s not getting any easier. But we’ll be fine.
And if you’re out there reading this feeling the same uncertainty and confusion about your direction in life, well, I’m here to tell you that we can struggle together. We’ll be fine, as long as we never give up.
Don’t stress. Just be.
