How To Find Yourself (Even If You Weren’t Looking)

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So you’ve tried everything to find your passion, your purpose, your way in life and you’re still not where you think you should be? You’re not madly in love, not in the career you wanted, not in the big house you envisioned.

You’re being told something, but you’re not listening.

Have you ever watched water flow over an area of land? You’ll notice that it puts out fingers. Some of those fingers will be stopped when they come to high points or dead ends.

The water doesn’t keep pursuing that same course any longer. It simply rises until it finds a better way to go. But it never uses any effort. It just keeps building. It uses its weight and gravity until eventually, it takes the line of least resistance and finds a new course to pursue.

That’s what we’ve got to do.

While it might be embarrassing or feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, that’s OK. You’re doing two things:

1. Building toward something, toward a path that was there for you all along.
2. Demolishing the completely inaccurate picture you have of yourself.

We think that when we come to a dead end in life, love or career, that we’ve failed. Suppose that the water reaches that dead end and says to itself, “Well, I guess I failed. I can’t go any further. Might as well turn back.” We’d call it a sad, neurotic little water. But it doesn’t do that, it just keeps building.

When you try things and fail, don’t let it deter you, just keep building. Because you’re being told something. Just like the land is telling the water, “This isn’t the way to go. There’s another way, try over here.” Life is telling you the same thing.

Life is pointing out that no matter how hard you try to change or mold yourself into some ideal form of yourself, that’s not the way for you, so try another route.

The image you have of how you should be isn’t real, it doesn’t exist. It’s a figment of your imagination. That’s why you keep failing. You’re essentially on a snipe hunt. Chasing some ghost of an image of yourself.

As soon as you understand this, you’ll begin to follow a path that’s been there for you all along. Suddenly, your life will feel like it’s all coming together and you have no idea how or why it’s working, but it is, so you keep going with it. And then you let go and just be you and now you’ve found yourself.

You were there all along, you just didn’t trust yourself enough to let it shine through.

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photo: Farl

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