Planning: Day 4

Song of the Day: Roll Away Your Stone by Mumford & Sons

I love believing in something bigger than myself. I love believing in goodness and truth and life and humanity and purpose and curiosity and wonder and hope and all of those things that make your voice ring when you talk about them seriously and with enthusiasm. It’s why I love superheroes that fight for justice and probably why I’m a sucker for The West Wing and more than likely why Pope Francis can make me cry tears of joy just by being a good person.

Sometimes I think that’s enough to carry me, that belief in something bigger and better than me. Sometimes I think that if I had a goal, if I had a passion, I could run with confidence this race set before me and never cast my eyes from side to side. My passion could define me and everything would fall into place and sure, it would be difficult from time to time, but the difficulty wouldn’t stop me. I can carry on. I can push forward. It’s what the heroes do and I believe in heroes, whether I should or not.

But not always. If I have an angel pulling me upward on the strength of nouns typed with initial capitals, I have a demon pulling me down with whispers the rest of the time. Not to be dramatic about it, but it’s a convincing counterargument, the one my brain sells me. I don’t have a "purpose." I don’t have a goal and a passion. Those are words for false ideas, stories that we tell kids so they’ll get out of the house and do stuff for us without complaining. You buy into all the purpose crap and you’re a sucker. I can carry on with all those fake dreams, sure, but why bother? It’s not like there’s someone I’m living for. 

I want that, most of all. Someone to support me and carry me upward and help me find my purpose and my strengths and remind me what I’m good for, remind me why I try. I feel like I should find all of that inside of me, or from the big letter things in the first paragraph. Hope in human goodness. It should give me a fire. It should give me a purpose. Those things are gifts from the divine that impassion souls and make them dare the stars and I want that and I should be able to find that without someone else giving me a boost up. 

That’s why I’m so frustrated right now with all of this. With everything. What will it take to get me to go to extraordinary lengths? What will it take to make me into the kind of person my heart wants to be? Will it take someone else, curing me of my dependable bend toward independence? Will it take an event, something that picks a path for me? Or can I just think my way through this, just pick the most logical choice and seek out passion within it? The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, they say. One exhausting step, followed by a near infinity of others and why in the world did they think that saying would be comforting? 

Is passion something like love? Do you know it when you see it, even if you can’t describe it? Do… do some people go their whole lives without it? Is it okay if I don’t have it? Is it okay if I just do my thing until it wanders into my life? Or should I seek it out? Is there a stone for me to roll away in this scenario? 

They throw quote like, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” at you. 

But they never tell you what to do to fix that.