Source: www.collectivelyconscious.net | Original Post Date: November 19, 2015 –
There are those questions: “Who am I?” “What should I do with my life?” “How do I be happy?”
You feel a certain way about these questions, I’m sure. They feel heavy, obstructive. What’s to be done with them? Consciously or not, most of us figure it’s best just to ignore them, and hope they don’t really matter. That’s certainly how I lived, until one day I slowed down, stopped, and sat with them.
I was raised by an uber-practical, atheist mother and a father convinced that science was the be-all and end-all of human existence. I was encouraged to think for myself, and to challenge authority (a little), as long as I still got a good job that paid well. Like many American families today, words like “spiritual” never made an appearance over the dinner table, and we so rarely spoke of our love for each other. I remember having some faint inkling that there was something not being said, and that that “something” was everything.
Like most all university students, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. But one day a shiny object caught my eye: Investment Banking on Wall Street. I spent the next year forgoing my social life (forgoing life, in general), as I poured literally all my energies into landing a job in this highly competitive field. And against all odds, I did. A year later, I was an investment banker in New York City. It was all I wanted in the world.
Getting what you want is the first step to figuring out what you actually want. It didn’t take me very long to realize that working 100 hours per week at a bank is utter misery. I was severely depressed, and it wasn’t just me. Essentially everyone around me was miserable, and openly aware of the fact that they were living for their paycheck (or more accurately, for their bonus).
Materialism reigned supreme, and it became strikingly obvious that I didn’t belong. I found myself lying constantly, faking smiles, and thinking of ways to kill my boss (I mean this literally. We would all sit in conference rooms late at night and talk about ways to extinguish his life). So I knew I wanted out, but I felt I couldn’t leave. This was my career I’m building here, and I’ve worked so hard to get to this point. I couldn’t just give all this up… right?
Someone once told me people are like tubes of toothpaste. Only when we’re under the most miserable conditions, when we’re really getting squeezed, do we see what’s truly inside us. It is at the most challenging of times that we recognize our truest self, and can make a choice to honor our honest need for a change.
In my case, I began to get the feeling that even though I had nearly killed myself to get this job, I honestly, genuinely no longer wanted it. This was very, very hard for me to acknowledge. I had worked so hard to get there! And so I made excuses: maybe it would get better somehow, maybe my boss will quit, or maybe the salary is simply worth the pain. And so I held on, even as I spent every single day in misery. In my heart of hearts, I knew I shouldn’t stay, but I was afraid. I was fearful.
When we’re plagued by a difficult yet inevitable truth, we rarely turn to it and face it head on. Most commonly, we play the game of denial. We half-consciously ignore an uncomfortable truth, and go on believing what is comfortable and familiar. We all do this. We’re consumed by our fears, and so we don’t take the time to pause and ask ourselves, “What, in this moment, do I truly want?”
Looking inward in this way is something many people feel they have no time for, and some even disparage. But at the end of the day, the only way we can act freely and truly for ourselves is if we spend time and effort figuring out what we truly want. Fortunately for me, I was able to spend some time giving myself the room and space to breath, and allowing myself to simply feel what I was feeling. I felt more myself than ever, and from that mental space, I knew I could make my clearest decisions.
And so finally, I was able to accept that I truly did not want this job. The idea of never leaving the bank had become scarier than the idea of unemployment. So I made a plan to survive a few months without income, and I quit. I spent those months just being myself, and eventually realized what I really wanted to do: write and teach. I’ve begun doing just that, and while it hasn’t been easy, I’m much happier struggling at something I want to do than I was struggling at something I didn’t. This way, if I go down, I go down living.
This story of mine is just one story, and I’m sure it sounds different than yours. You’re probably not an investment banker. You had different parents than I did. It’s true: we’ve led different lives. But you and I both know how it feels to not know who you are. To feel completely lost. Totally alone. To feel betrayed by our hopes. To utterly fail. We all lead these meandering, unsophisticated, messy lives, and we’re all just trying to figure out how to be happy.
How do we find happiness? Well, by asking ourselves what would make us happy. You can make the time to do this! How about when you first wake up in the morning? Or when you’re in the car? Or the shower? Or sitting on the toilet? We’re just talking about a couple minutes here. Make this a priority. Ask yourself what really matters to you, and then (this is important) really listen to yourself. Hear what comes with all of your attention.
We spend most of our lives essentially spinning out of control. We don’t know who we are, we don’t know what we want, and, unfortunately, we think we do know who we are, and we think we do know what we want. So we chase after this and that, and live lives that are misaligned with what actually makes us happy. So, wake up! Take a stand, and make the effort to really, actually listen to yourself. Be courageous, and ask yourself the tough questions. You’ll be beginning the process of actually living for yourself.
Written by Gregor Levy of www.collectivelyconscious.net
About the Author
Gregor Levy is a writer of all things mindful and meditative. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.
This article (Facing The Big Questions: From Investment Banker To Spiritual Seeker) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gregor Levy and www.collectivelyconscious.net.
