Subdued Reflections
July 27th, 2010Since my recent 25th birthday I’ve been pondering everything that happened my 24th year of life and I am having an arduous time trying to find good memories. The moments that should have been happy moments I was more often than not completely blithe to. Truth be realized, there was not a single moment I was raptured in utter happiness.
Let’s be clear it is not an issue of being depressed. It’s also not an issue of believing God somehow dealt me a poor hand in life. He gave me an embarrassingly high IQ and eidetic memory mixed with thorough creative, analytical and athletic abilities, I’ve never had to overly-worry about my needs being met, and I know the wholeness that comes with repenting your sins and placing your faith in Christ for your salvation. I truly have nothing to be desiderate about.
That being disclosed, It has taken a year of reflections to finally start deducing what really has been bothering me, and I have come to the realization that it is actually two intertwined items weighing on my soul.
The Drive
I have a cardinal rule in life. Every morning, without exception, in the mirror I stare through my eyes into my soul and honestly ask myself:
“If I die soon, would I do what I am about to do today?”
Life is such that if you are honest you will always have “No” days, but if the bare honest answer is “No” too many days in a row, something needs to change.
Until I turned 24, this served me well in setting priorities to help satisfy my insatiable drive to succeed. I cannot remember anything I have tried to do in life I have not achieved. However, since turning 24 a year ago, my daily answer every day has been “No, I wouldn’t do today what I am about to do”. So what changed?
After a year of wrestling with this, I am finally starting to figure out the issue. I know I haven’t lost my drive and I still have big dreams I’m working hard toward every day. The problem lays in the outcome of the dreams. What is the value of success? We all want wealth, recognition, and influence, but I find these wants have largely lost their appeal to me. The crux of the waning of their appeal I only started to comprehend recently… bringing us to issue two: The Who.
The Who
My drive to succeed has had what I believed the necessary need, and now I believe unfortunate consequence, of not committing to people. I never allowed myself the time to get to know most of the people whose paths mine wove across. “I do not have the time” is my usual line of thought.
I did not realize until recently that deep down I have a lot of regrets about the relationships, both friends and girlfriends, that I threw away to have the time to succeed. Would I go back and do it differently? No. I am happy with what I have accomplished thus far in life and the groundwork I have laid for accomplishments in the upcoming years is exciting. Do I regret it nonetheless? I now believe perhaps I do.
The Quandary
Last Friday I came to the postulation that what has been devouring my ability to say “Yes” to my daily reflection the past year are the following questions:
What is the value of success if you are too busy trying to succeed to enjoy life and the companionship of others?
Can you truly have both? Or does it have to be a balance?
The quandary of what I need to actually change in my life and dreams to be able to say “yes” in the morning continues. Pray I find inspiration soon as the burden of a year of “No, I wouldn’t.” every day is starting to vanquish my soul.
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now playing: Lecrae – Fall Back (feat. Trip Lee)
