The pain of not knowing why you’re here

Pain feels like the first chapter in my story and maybe yours too.  I’m 34 years old as of this writing.  Let’s arbitrarily say that around age 16 is when I started to wonder why I’m here and what I should be doing in the world.  This is the time when your peers begin to talk about their possible future and what they want to become.  

From high school to college to the rest of my 20’s and early 30’s was chock full of waves of deep depression that felt unending.  There were countless times where this pain would build and build, and there I was again, in the corner of my room crouched down, feeling tight in my chest crying because I was in so much emotional pain, as the accumulated build up had to be released.. again.

I wonder how many people out there felt the same way? 

My path to self discovery has been a confusing one. I have noticed life seems to give you answers in microscopic bites, so small you don’t even know it’s part of the larger picture until, I suspect, years later.

I didn’t know what I wanted to be and so I would look to existing positions/jobs as potential options for me.  Because I didn’t know what I would like, I imagined myself doing every possible job out there.  I was so confused at the time to know what would most closely suit me that I wanted to get a feel for anything.  Add low self esteem to the equation and my search for the “perfect job” just felt like a hamster wheel. 

When I felt unfulfilled in a job and the excitement noticeably waned, I left to seek that ‘green pasture’, and again would end up feeling disappointed.  It took a few repeated cycles of this to realize that “oh maybe there isn’t a job that has what I’m looking for“.  Now I had no clear path. Ouch. Who would help me?  I needed help desperately!  A new perspective. Something. Anything!  The misery of this realization as my pattern started to take shape was unbearable especially since I felt like I had no solution to my problem. “Was I alone?”, “Does everybody really have it figured out?!”

Imagine feeling great purpose and not knowing why or what you’re supposed to do with it.  I knew only to take the traditional route like I saw most people doing, and still I felt like I wasn’t anywhere close to figuring it out.