Here I am again, at a local breakfast place called “Village Inn” in SLC. Since moving two weeks ago, I’ve been here every night around midnight to close. You know what I do the whole time? Sit silently and think. Think about my life, past and present. Think about what’s to come. Sometimes I’m optimistic, but most of the time I’m freaking out. My life has been a hodgepodge of emotions and changes lately. I got out of a long-term relationship with the woman I thought I was going to marry, barely passed my college courses due to the depression, drugs, and alcohol as a result of the break-up, and transferred to the University of Utah from a small private college in Indiana. I left behind family, friends, fraternity brothers, and my home. I took a chance. I dropped everything that was a form of comfort and moved out to a place of mystery and questions. How well will I adapt to these changes? Will I make new friends? Was this the right choice: to leave my previous college and go to a public university? Will I ever find someone to take away the pain I carry in my heart.

Now there are a lot of people whom I’ve talked about these questions with and I get answers like, “You’ll be fine!” “You’ll make friends.” “Love will find it’s way back to you.” Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree with these answers, yet I cannot help but think about them every hour of the day. I still worry. I still freak out. I get sad. I get mad. Does that make me weak? No. It makes me stronger. The emotion drives me to be optimistic and strong through a time in my life where I’m falling apart. Some will call my moving out as “running away from my problems.” It is not the reason. I wanted to move on, to find myself. I know it sounds cliché, but it’s nothing but the truth. The greatest challenge every single person attempts to achieve is to find themself. Find their purpose. That’s what I’m doing. That’s why I’m in Utah.

So why am I talking about stuff like this? Why would you or anyone who reads this care? Because you have or will go through similar thoughts and feelings in one way or another. Life is tough. Honestly? Life sucks. It really does. Life is full of shitty moments, only to be lightened by the very rare and few good ones. Latch onto those good moments, and engrave every little detail that may not be significant at the time. Those little, seemingly insignificant details are going to be what get’s you through the days of your life. Be grateful. There were times when I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I doubted myself, my life, and everyone in it. And I’m still questioning those things. I’m still trying to find myself, my purpose, my place. Though it may be the hardest thing I’ll ever do, I know I’ll find the answers to these questions and all the other questions I think every day.

So I urge each of you to sit down in silence, watch the world go by for a little bit, and think. That’s it. Just think about your life: past, present, and future. You would be surprised how loud your brain can be while being silent. Ask yourself, “Have I found myself? My purpose? My place?” Many of you will be shocked to find that you don’t know. That’s OK. Then again, maybe we are never supposed to know if we found our place. Maybe we all become complacent at some point in our life, making us believe we found ourselves.