Even in trying to be our best selves, to seek higher values, we cannot escape the influence our society has.
I never felt that I fit. I couldn’t see myself in many of the roles my peers pursued. I wanted to be everything, to try everything, to experience the world and its mysteries.
They would ask what I wanted to be. They would have career day, a parade of adults peddling vocations. A sense of panic was born, and has not stopped growing, even as I mark my middle-thirties. I should know what I’m good at by now, I should have a plan.
I played at having a plan, going to college and letting small choices become my paths toward career. Then there was a job, and I became the position’s title. I lived to work, and slowly the spark of curiosity that guided me began to fade. The underlying values lost their meaning.
I once valued creativity as play, as openness, as discovery of truths deep within.
I once valued curiosity as the urge to experience life as it happened, exploring the wild places or losing myself in books.
I once knew the joy of connection, sharing secrets with friends and enjoying traditions with family.
I was losing my awareness of self, even as I amassed degrees and certificates. My new compass was career, its values lied in money, purchase power, title, and recognition.
I hid illness for over a decade, ashamed that I couldn’t thrive, accepting the verdict of broken. I tried to fill that hole by nesting, collecting things (and debt). I bounced through the internet dating world and a few futureless relationships.
And so I left. I left a career and a title, and even now I wonder if that was a mistake, with the weight of student loan debt darkening the future.
From outside that fast-paced world of successful careers and competitive consumption, things changed. I could breath. I felt better. In all the ways that mattered, I was thriving.
But now I nursed another kind of shame. My small savings began to shrink. I couldn’t afford to live in the city, I didn’t know how to get more money, and I had lost any sense of confidence in my abilities.
That version of reality where job titles and bank accounts equals success clings to my mind. I’ve shied away from writing, because what could I possibly say that matters.
I fight the sense of panic daily – how do I live in a way that fits my values? I am lucky and grateful to have help to get through a difficult time, but what happens when we are priced out of our values?
This post doesn’t have a profound ending, but perhaps a small crack in my mask of positive spin. We are how we act in the endlessness of the moment. Perhaps our resilience to our own suffering is more important than realizing our fullest potential in the good times.
In this moment, I am faced with limited prospects and my own lack of imagination and initiative in creating my own future. I am humbled and grateful and scared (but not alone), I am trying to find a way forward even as my own mind blocks my efforts to see beyond my narrow view.
A Deliberate Life 