“You do get to a certain point in life

                                                Where you have to realistically, I think,

                                                Understand that the days are getting shorter.

                                                And you can’t put things off,

                                                Thinking you’ll get to them someday.

                                                If you really want to do them,

                                                You better do them…

                                                So I’m very much a believer in knowing

                                                What it is that you love doing

                                                So that you can do a great deal of it.”

                                                                                  – Nora Ephron (1941 – 2012)

If you know me, you know this: Every so often…(okay, like every other day) I am asking myself questions like, “What am I supposed to be doing in this world? What are the things I really like and want to do? What are the things I am good at that can help other people? What should I be doing with this little life of mine? Is this it? Am I doing it?”

They seem cliche questions to me in some ways and it helps to know that I’m not the only one in the world who asks them. I’ve written before that these questions have exhausted me time and again – I just can’t seem to find the answers. So I’ve tried taking breaks from asking them and instead tried focusing on the things that are good and wonderful about right now. Turns out, there are A LOT of things that are good and wonderful about right now and I am deeply grateful for those things. Yet, it seems I frequently return to a subtle, but familiar state of panic. Panic that there’s something else I should be doing and the real panic sets in because I can’t figure out what that thing is.

That panic set in a little bit recently and so I’ve gathered my energies to keep pushing forward, try new things, meet people who are doing things I think are interesting, self reflect like a crazy woman to hopefully be able to better articulate what I want and am good at and am qualified for.

My condo is under serious construction right now – to the point that the door to the deck is currently boarded up. I’ve turned the board into a workspace and am posting ideas and to do lists towards this end of figuring out my life. That, and I checked out the parachute book from the library. I’ve done bits of the parachute book before, but I figured taking another stab at answering the questions would help provide some structure to this renewed effort.

And then today, I came upon THIS BLOG POST with these lovely words, “And as I get older I see, more often than not, that true calling (if it exists) is more often stumbled upon than assigned – we get there on our way to something else. Maybe so as long as we’re moving forward, we’re on our way.” And those words led to THESE WORDS of Jeff Goins which I found immensely comforting (so much so that I added his book to my queue at the library and signed up for his e-newsletter). What would I ever do without the inspiration of the interwebs?!

All this to say that perhaps I’m doing okay?

Perhaps I should change that voice in my head that says so harshly with so much judgement and disappointment, “How is it that you haven’t found your thing yet? How is it that you ask such big questions so frequently and still feel stuck and out of inspiration and don’t know what to do? What is wrong with you?”

Yes, yes, perhaps that voice should instead say, “Darling, keep it up – it may not seem like it, but you are surely on your way to that something you are looking for. In fact, have some faith that any day now you will stumble upon it. In the meantime, keep treasuring all those good and wonderful things and people that are your life right now.”