Source: Open Letters That Matter
How many nights have passed wherein you weren't staring into the hollow darkness of your bedroom ceiling? You're laying there again... feeling empty, hopeless, lost. This conversation could go a million and one ways. People feel lost for an infinite amount of reasons. Nonetheless every story ends the same way: you simply feel stuck, bereft of any perceivable goal, direction, or plan. Since when did you let go of life's unpredictability and trade it for the disorganized rut that's leading you further and further away from your true happiness in the first place?
When did money, bills, or material things come before your joy? Your health? Your passion?
You watch as others work towards reaching their life goals—ceaselessly working, relentlessly grinding, desperately crawling their way up to where they want to go. Everyone is working, hustling, bursting with persistent determination. All for chasing that elusive destination—whatever or wherever it may be.
Everything just happens so fast that if you blink you'll miss it.
But all this struggling? It just doesn't make sense to you.
How can they be sprinting forward whereas you stay there with your feet rooted to the floor with no right destination, no goal, no hope, no dreams, almost as if you can't do anything to escape no matter what you do? How can someone feel so helpless?
There are those cold nights you know all too well. Nights wherein you just lay in bed staring into nothing only to find the will to get up almost an impossible feat. After all, how can someone live without motivation to do anything? Not that you're lazy or you refuse to get anywhere in life. But you just can't find your calling, your purpose, your sense of belonging—and like a tragic tale, it's simply something that people can't understand.
Then the fear starts creeping in.
You grip your sheets and feel the stinging tears threatening to fall—and then your emptiness begins to claw its way out. You begin to fear that you will forever be a lost soul. Endlessly attempting to belong, ceaselessly trying to make a connection, and building bridges that you know in your heart will only crumble into dust in the end.
"I feel lost..." You catch yourself whispering again. You remember the first time you said it, overwhelmed by the gravity of your situation. Come to think of it, you've said it far too many times already that you've lost count. We all know what it's like to feel left out like that and it sucks. It just so happens that some people can maneuver their way out of their own despondence—whereas others can't. The feeling is like being stuck in a maze without a solution. The labyrinths always changing, always morphing into something more difficult, always forcing you back to where you've started.
The thing is, we were raised to believe that we were all born with some cosmic purpose in life that we have to figure out. Some destiny predetermined by an unknown almighty being that we will all end up in no matter what we do. Right? Right. But how sure are we with that? Believing that destiny is something that's laid out for you way before you were even born is pretty much as credible as a fortune cookie saying that your lucky number is 1 but only during a full moon on a Tuesday.
Sure, you're feeling lost now. Maybe you've been a lost soul far too long now. Your sunshine may not come now, maybe not even tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day, or the next.
But it WILL.
If you keep building the bridges and making your connections that is.
You just have to remember that simply because you're moving much slower than anyone else, doesn't mean you'll never get there.
Besides, who even said that the destination must be valued more than the journey itself? Sometimes it's not about getting to where you want to be, it's about ending up where you're supposed to be—whether that be the place where you intended to fall or not. Why don't you welcome the scenic route of your hustle with open arms? Why don't you just enjoy being lost? Branch out. Keep throwing your connections. Spin your intricate web of infinite outcomes.
Focus on yourself. Take that leap of faith. Travel. Discover. Fall in love. Take risks. You might be too busy attempting to find yourself in this fast-paced world that you become blind to the things that are right in front of you (which are sadly the most under appreciated). If you still can't find yourself after all this, then create your own destiny. It's that simple.
Embrace your impossible story. You're the one writing it after all. Make it good.
By Daryn Agapay
