What do you want?

You have to do things for your family, your friends, your work, your life, but What do you want?

Someone asked me once – What do you want in life? My reaction – a blank stare. I couldn’t come up with anything and me being me – I spouted off a bunch of things and while doing that I realized all of them – EVERY single one was not what I wanted, but what my work wanted, what my family would have wanted, what my mother would have wanted, what my partner wanted, what I should want and what I was doing in life to get the things THAT I DID NOT WANT! I was not living my own life, but someone else’s. I don’t know whose life I was living, but it definitely wasn’t mine.

That was a moment I’ll never forget. I had lost myself. Lost it all – in the mess of the day to day. I believe that’s why people get depressed. It’s not the only reason, but one of the reasons. Life becomes meaningless.

I’ll quote Joseph Campbell again, he’s one of my go-to guys for wisdom about getting clear on things.

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That’s what it’s all finally about, and that’s what these clues help us to find within ourselves.”

The clues are how you feel and the way you are behaving or the things you are doing to succeed or to sabotage yourself.

Sometimes it’s best to give up on things you should want, but don’t. It’s hard, but necessary. That moment for me was 11 years ago.

Start today. It’s just one day, but the first one in the rest of your life. It’s crazy how doors start to open when you finally decide what you really want and agree to begin that conversation with yourself.  What do you want?