Letting Go of Stability, I Found Clarity

I let go of everything I thought I was.

It was extraordinarily liberating, simply just being. Everything in life somehow comfortably fell into the exact places that they were always meant to be. I experienced the purest meaning of serenity.

I felt free. I was free.

And then anxiety and my unwillingness to commit stole this moment from me.

I found myself scrambling. Stumbling over my two left feet. Grasping for a stable future. The one that I had perfectly constructed. The path that was laid neatly in front of me. That is, until I tore it all apart.

I molded a future that embodied the American dream. It would be stable, somewhat boring, but it would be comfortable. Clean, and unlikely to slip away from me. I played it safe. Really safe. I had a secure business degree with an information technology background, and I had critically constructed my resume. I went after careers where I saw growth potential, and companies with offices all over the country that would ease my worries of ever having to deal with a long distance relationship. I had been preparing myself for this future, deliberately reducing any risk of failure and disappointment. I made it comfortable. And it was easily within my reach, finally giving me the security I had been wishing for my whole life.

A life that I chose, that I created. It was mine.

But was I shorting myself? It was comfortable, stable. It was easy and tempting.

This was my unwillingness to commit. To trust myself in the moment of releasing everything that I knew about myself.

Liberating and devastating. The ability to let go or hold on. Contradicting and complementing decisions, only able to exist with the presence of the other.

I had chose to demolish my entire being. And then I was fighting to get it back.

Fighting to reduce the risk once again, but with a career path that I believed would put my mind at ease. I’m infatuated by psychology and the science around how our minds work. In an attempt to grasp once again for that stability, I put a ton of pressure on myself to apply to graduate schools. All of the programs I reviewed were not exactly suited towards my particular interests. The programs were conventional with curriculum designed for the average psychology career. I didn’t want the average psychology career.

I was uncomfortable with unconventional, which forced me into the exact position I was in before. I was still reaching for that stability when I had already once been aware of its hindering position in my life.

I’m becoming more at peace with the unknown, calm with the unplanned future. Comfort is not an area of growth, and I want to be avidly curious, continuously challenging myself.
A conventional path is not for me for mostly one reason.
It would not allow me to serve my purpose wholeheartedly.

There’s a reason and a why that I am writing this. That I have created this space. That I am here in this moment, alive, sharing my thoughts. Sharing the thoughts of others. I can’t possibly know it in its entirety. Time will tell and mold it into what it was always truly meant to be. But I am here now for a reason, connecting with you through my words. Connecting with myself in this moment.

This has meaning. I want to live with meaning.

I have never in my life felt such an intense awareness of living and being. I have been deaf to understanding. Silencing the necessary embrace of the present moment. Life is meant to be a whirlwind, non-linear experience. Yet, I had constructed a future path of linearity. Only which would leave me with disappointment from any unexpected turns, and hindered growth from sidestepping challenges with potential failures that strayed from linearity.

I want to appreciate the dark, the destructive, the difficult. The whirlwind of life.

With this, I choose to let go of my grasp on a stable, linear future. I choose to embrace my ability to craft meaning into my now, while riding the waves of life.

By letting go of stability, and any preset self-definitions and directions,

I found clarity. I found myself.

Here. Raw, consistently unfinished work. And I became at peace. Peace with what is and is not. The only definite truth of that which I am alive. At least I believe to be, so I plan on taking advantage of it. I am able to let go of the internal tension from my continuous battle against anything that poses risk. Be at ease with the imperfections that I typically would continue to polish in discontentment.

I’m destined to believe there is beauty in every difficult and devastating thing in this world. The cycle of understanding does not contain a satisfied end goal. Yes, I understand and believe in these philosophies, but tomorrow I may struggle to grasp this truth. My understanding may fade and irrational thoughts may flood my mind. I am a conditioned human, and these beliefs take work to incorporate into my entire being. However, I vow to remain continually curious, constantly relearning and reaffirming myself and this world. This is an ongoing cycle, of reflection and understanding, of life.

The human existence is a remarkable thing.
We can learn to let go, giving us the grasp of understanding that we need.

That these thoughts, this world, ourselves,
are impermanent. Our future is not definite.

And it can be a very frightening, but liberating feeling.