Lost

A lot has been said over the years about fate and destiny; even I have shared my feelings on this and through it all while many disagree about issues of free will and predetermination, the one thing most people can seem to agree on is that life is about finding out what you're meant to do with it.

In many ways life is a puzzle handed to a child which they do not know anything about who is then asked to figure it out.  In the same way as the literal sense where a child is often given such things to stave off boredom or to occupy it's time, you can argue that this is all that life is to us.  Whether you believe in a God and believe they bestowed this gift upon us, or whether you have no belief in any deity and believe that life simply arose from circumstance, you can still agree that no-one is born with an innate understanding of their purpose of being.

Life is a puzzle.  It's a puzzle I can't figure out and I am lost.  I know I am not alone however.  I know some people have mastered the 3 D's - determination, drive and direction - but I know many more who, like me, don't know where their life is headed.  Without having direction it's hard to pursue anything with determination and drive. 

Whether you are 14 or 42 one thing also rings true - no-one can tell you what to do with your life.  Others can try and control it and in some cases they do that all too well, but under the skin, flowing through your beating heart, there remains to be an all-present, all-aware sensation of knowing whether something is right or wrong for you.  Incidents and circumstance allow us to hide these feelings and cover them up; some people are very good at burying these feelings deep inside, but that increases pressure and in time when the pot runneth over you eventually melt down.  If you deny who you are for long enough, these feelings will envelope your soul until you can take it no more.

There are many ways to live your life.  Embracing who you are is a big part of finding happiness and being content.  For some groups there is a tradition of repressing this which later leads to mid-life cirses in which they have a breakdown and come out the other side as the person they were meant to be - others don't make it out intact and instead emerge as a shell of their former selves and find themselves in a depth of darkness or vast emptiness where they live only for the sake of living.

There's a lot to be said about the acceleration of our lives that our society is embracing more and more; the concept of a quarter-life crisis for example is something that has only existed within the last few decades.  You can make of that what you will but the point I want to address is that these crises all share the same thing regardless of where or when they actually happen, and that is, the shattering of the shell that we have built around ourselves.

Life is about finding your way and when you can't, and you find yourself lost, it's very hard to shake the feeling that you are a failure.  Not a failure at anything specifically but simply a failure at life.

This is how I feel right now because I don't know where I am anymore and I don't know where to go.  I am lost.