The Journey

Many people are born into this life and, at some point in their journey, wonder how they got where they are now. I suspect that’s why you are reading this article now, either because you have some questions you need answered or because someone in your life recommended that you read it for yourself. We all have unique life adventures, may live in different cultures, or descend from a line of ancestors who were unusual in character, but even those facts will not alter some basic fundamentals of the human experience. All of us share some common ground when it comes to emotions or certain struggles of life. You might find some surprising elements in your character or personality traits that you’ve somehow “acquired” through interactions with others. I suspect that it might be more than you initially think. We have some learned behaviors and we have likely been imparted a set of values that have been taught to us either directly from parents, mentors, or those we respect and revere. A healthy and thoughtful exercise to consider would be to assess yourself on a regular basis to figure out what’s really important in your life. The key is to ask questions to probe yourself into thinking hard about something we usually don’t take the time to do. The basic concept of the life experience is worth exploring throughout your life.

The path really begins as you explore the world around you, the people in your life, and learn to see outside the paradigms and assumptions we’ve naturally built into ourselves over time. If you stop to think about this for a moment, consider how a young child is full of questions about the universe around them. Have you ever noticed how some children will continually ask “Why?” about something? Do questions such as these annoy you or does it present an opportunity for your own evaluation? And perhaps even more remarkably, children simply accept our incomplete answers (or perhaps intentionally deceitful responses) at face value and internalize them more than we know. Only until those answers begin to clash into one another and topple like a house of cards, more questions begin to bubble to the surface and desire to resolve to reconcile the conflict within drives the need for more questions. While this basic process of internalization is more evident during a child’s development, it really occurs through our life. It can more difficult for adults who have learned to avoid or shut out those impulses until a more catastrophic event in their life brings these conflicts to the forefront. We can selectively nurture this desire by exploring outside of our comfort zone, asking questions, and meeting people normally outside of our circle of associations.¹

Now that you are thinking more about the context of our life journey and where you might be in life, we can begin to strip our assumptions of who we think we are, things that are important in life, and the world in which we live. For example, think about a few fundamental questions about yourself:

1. Who in my life is really important enough to personally invest my time into a meaningful relationship?
2. What will have true impact on my own development or future generations?
3. When will I get to do the things I really want to do?
4. Where can I find answers to important questions and individuals that I trust?
5. Why am I really doing this?
6. How can I begin?

Seriously, stop to consider these questions for at least two minutes each and only then continue reading. Ask yourself these hard questions, consider some responses in your mind, and really ponder it.

Now that we asked ourselves some hard questions and pondering our own lives, we probably have a lot of ideas floating around in our conscious (and unconscious) mind that may be uncomfortable to hold all at once. Perhaps we struggle to retain all the thoughts we had or encountered some distractions that broke through our thinking exercise. The experience could have also been overwhelming or unsolvable, and that is okay. Despite what happened during your experience, the main truth you realize is that there is a lot of things that you’ve collected that you don’t know how to solve or reconcile with yourself that you’ve likely buried far within yourself. You’re not going to be able to solve it all right now. The point of this experience is to awaken you to a knowledge of its existence so that the process of self-actualization can begin. (See Wikipedia) It means that we become more aware of who we are and see the world with new eyes. You really can understand your innate character and nurture qualities in yourself that you value and desire. You really can obtain meaningful happiness by removing out fear and assumptions we never realized that we had. The true power of this process is that we can redefine ourselves and understand how much we control of our own destiny.

Let’s start with a small step. It is an exercise that will help ground you in some basic desirable knowledge that will help in everyday life. Start exploring and learning 50 things that you will find useful to you now. You may know some of these things, and in fact, you may most or all of these things already. If you don’t, that’s okay too. The exercise of exploration, measuring your own progress, and watching your own reactions/thoughts during them can be just as critical to your own self-awareness as the actual experience or knowledge you gain. Start by reading the list of things you should know and then set out to learn those skills.²