Sometimes the most refreshing moments are the ones where you stop trying to have all the answers, stop trying to predict the future, stop trying to navigate the places you haven’t yet reached and just exist right where you are.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve struggled with this. I just want to know if I’m making the best decision, if I’m loving the right person, if I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. And yet, each time I’ve done something ‘wrong,’ I’ve learned. Each time I’ve fallen, I’ve become stronger as a result. Each time a relationship didn’t work out, I learned who I was and what I wanted. Each time I’ve lost my way, I’ve discovered a piece of my identity that I wouldn’t have known had I not wandered down a messy path.
And that’s the thing we forget about life—it’s a continual journey—and perhaps the best thing we can do for ourselves and this adventure is to ready for it, look with excitement towards what’s coming, and then, finally, let it happen.
Maybe the greatest lesson in life is not how to have the best time, but how to stop worrying about what the ‘best’ even is. Stop trying to make everything perfect. Stop putting so much damn pressure on yourself to fall in love, to get a good job, to make money, to live in an extravagant house…etc. Stop thinking that where you are isn’t enough.
Maybe the purpose of our lives is not to have all the answers but to embrace the unknown and learn as you go, using who you are as a person to bless the world around you, seeking happiness instead of trying so hard to manifest it on your own.
Maybe true joy is not found in what you can obtain, but what’s already inherently around and within you. A perspective change, rather than trying to grasp the intangible between your fingertips, and beating yourself up for every slip and fall.
Maybe you learn how to live when you stop thinking that ‘living’ is having everything mapped out. Maybe when you step into the unknown you truly embrace what this journey has to offer you—good, bad, and everything in-between.
Maybe it’s not about knowing whether or not you’re in the ‘right’ relationship, but jumping anyways, accepting that there’s a chance you might get hurt, but the risk outweighs being alone. Maybe it’s not about worrying where you are financially or in your career because you still have time to improve and seek options, and you don’t have to settle, nor undervalue yourself either.
Maybe it’s not about overthinking every damn choice and decision until you’re paralyzed by fear but accepting that there are things you can’t possibly know, and even if you do, they might change. So it’s far better to try, and fail, and question, and redo—because all of this is inevitable anyways.
Maybe it’s not about stressing over things you can’t control, but doing your best to plan and then letting your life be shifted and swayed by the wind.
Maybe life is not passivity, but acceptance—of where you are and what can happen. Not standing on the sidelines of your life, but knowing that you can only do so much. And when you take some of that pressure off yourself, well, then you allow yourself to just be.
And maybe, in the end, that’s the most important thing of all.
Featured Image Credit: Jack Finnigan
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