On Tuesday we were sitting in the sand at my favourite Cala, a brisk 30-minute walk away from my home in Mallorca. I had to pull my sunglasses off the wipe away the tears.
She had just shared a concept made tangible by the well-known psychotherapist Francis Weller that speaks to the collective grief we all share at coming here.
To have a human experience and not receive the love we thought we would get from our parents, nor the community to receive us, nor the depth of emotional intimacy from one another, nor the opportunity to serve something larger than oneself. Our souls are left searching for some meaning, a reason for why we are here at all, if those parts of ourselves aren’t met.
My eyes immediately welled up. “I feel this so deeply” I replied to her.
The great illusion is that life eventually arrives after enough effort and searching.
Life never arrives.
Instead, we continue to search and live our lives in pursuit of greater understanding, greater compassion, and greater levels of creativity that we add to the world.
This is life.
It’s fun, it’s painful, it’s happy, it’s depressing.
Consider the fact that you’re on a planet spinning eastward at 1,040 miles per hour while it travels on an elliptical course around the sun, at 66,600 miles per hour. You’re sustained by a rich protective atmosphere with oxygen to feed your lungs and brain and food all around you. You get to do almost anything you want while you are here.<
While you and everyone else are searching for why, we are living in a world where life involves overcoming adversity. No matter what kind of life path you have chosen, you’re going to deal with discouragement, frustration, and situations that are, shall we say, “less than ideal.” It is a journey of falling and failing and learning with rare punctuations of triumph here and there.
But hope can make life mean something.
It tells us “You can do this”.
It’s easy to be wrong about truth, but it’s impossible to be wrong about hope.
Hope is the way purpose and goodness propel us into the future. Hope sustains us because it sustains the need we have to believe that something good is on its way.
So…
- Start the new thing.
- Take a chance on something.
- Become your own biggest advocate.
- Look everywhere for what is life-affirming and adds to your life.
- In the battle between your head and your heart, go with your heart.
- Open yourself up to new friendships, communities, and people.
- Accept that life is always changing and that you can, too.
- Remember that you are hope.