Do you ever feel like your life might fall between the cracks?

Taking the panic out of personal growth and making life count

A friend turned 51 last week and said to me, ‘I need to make the next twenty years count’. And I know how she feels. I can sometimes feel like that, too.

Must do better.

Must achieve more.

We’ve become so obsessed with achievement! Haven’t I written about that before? I think I have…

I worry my life might fall between the cracks

Well, it seems I’m not done with it yet because while we were flying to the States last month, I started writing down some thoughts, beginning with this very statement. I pondered it for a while, thinking how ludicrous it was. How can my life fall between the cracks when I’ve loved so much? Isn’t that what matters?

A few days later, we were in the mountains, standing beside a river, watching it hurry along, forging its way through the wilderness, calm at times, racing at others, then leaping from great heights at stunning waterfalls and I thought how similar the river’s journey was to life. I wondered if perhaps we are more like drops of water, adventuring and flowing alongside one another.

There’s a sense of togetherness and flow when I look at it that way. And then I wonder why we’ve become so obsessed with ‘self’. Are all cultures the same? I’m not sure they are. Were our ancestors the same? I doubt it.

Why are we not at peace?

There has to be more to being a human than personal fulfilment and I think this is the bit we can miss…

We often think we need to be more than we are (however we translate that) because we live in a society that prizes more. But it’s not that. It’s not being more qualified, or more successful, or having more money or more holidays. It’s being more connected. It has to be. Because the other more isn’t getting us anywhere.

We are feeling more unfulfilled and unsatisfied than ever despite the fact we have everything at our fingertips. Why is that? It’s ironic, really, in this technologically advanced world where we can have whatever we want and be connected to whomever we so choose, we’ve never felt less so.

Why?? I think because all this talk about self-love and self improvement is diverting our attention from our purpose.

What? You say.

I know, bear with…

I was sitting having lunch with my daughter this week. She’s 19 and said something ridiculously wise. I hope to be like her one day.

We were talking about the challenges of living a simple life with all the temptations of stuff around us. And she made a comment about people often being selfishly motivated, and the only reason we need to work on our ‘selves’, is because we screwed ourselves up in the first place!

The end goal isn’t to love ourselves. It’s to free ourselves so we can love others

It flawed me and I pondered it for a moment. She’s right. Our purpose isn’t finding ourselves or being our ‘best-self’ or loving our ‘selves’. It’s connecting with each other, helping those around us, seeing a need and reaching out a hand. BUT we carry wounds that often prevent us from seeing beyond the end of our noses. Wounds from our own lives, from the world, and from our parents and grandparents etc. We hear those referred to as generational trauma, and they can change us from our original ‘self’ and we become disconnected from our true natures, our unique unaffected baby selves. It’s why when we revisit things we loved as children, we often feel so liberated, because we’re reconnecting with our truest self (I’m going to write more about this next time).

So, we need to work through those things that prevent us from being ourselves, in order to find ourselves - but that’s not the end goal. The end goal is to free ourselves so that we can love and, despite our flaws and failures, remain in the stream and flow with those around us. Like a drop of water.

If we dare listen to other religions from the ones we’ve grown up around, we can learn from those who have already found what it is to flow. It sounds so airy fairy though doesn’t it? Flow. It’s so difficult to fit on a spreadsheet!

So, it’s not possible to fall through the cracks because we are all held together, as one, like the river. At times, we flow easily; other times, boulders and borders get in the way, and we have to change course to navigate our way around them—but we are all in the stream, travelling, together.

So I’m not sure Maslow is correct. The purpose of our life isn’t self-actualisation. It’s to flow. And we need to work on our ‘self’, because when we feel well, we flow well.

So it’s less about personal achievement and more about connection. It's less about climbing ladders and more about building bridges. It's less about running a race and more about walking hand in hand.

And I think, when we can get our heads around that, it takes that panic out of making life count.