Earlier this week, one of my professors started off the class period by playing music and dancing around the room. He then paused, went up to the board, and wrote in big letters, "What do you live for?" and "Why do you exist?" He asked us to write down what we live for, and that posed a really big dilemma for me. I'd never really taken the time to think about why I'm going down the path I'm on. I just was moving through the motions of life. You graduate high school to go to college, to get a degree, to get a job, so on and so forth. I hadn't really thought of my purpose. The true meaning of my life and why I am going through these motions to obtain this particular degree. As our professor looked around the room, he made the point that a lot of us were staring down at a blank piece of paper and couldn't think about what we are living for. A part of me was happy that I wasn't the only one who couldn't come up with something to write down, but the other part of me was really upset that I'm in my third year of college and hadn't asked myself what made me get out of bed in the morning; what made me who I am.
He continued to go on and say that stillness is a rare commodity these days. We are constantly on the move, constantly thinking about the future and how we will get to that point, but we never ask why. We never stop and sit in complete stillness and try to hear the sound coming from inside of us. We never hear what makes us tick because we never stop and listen. When I got home from that class, the questions that were written on the board really weighed heavily on my mind. "What is my purpose?" Why couldn't I think of anything during class? I know who I want to be, and where I want to go, but why? Why am I here pursuing a degree in Public Policy? I tried to be as still as possible; physically, mentally, and emotionally. I tried to hear the sound that was coming from inside me and I'm still not sure if I heard anything, but I am more aware that there is a sound in there somewhere, trying to be heard. It may take a while, but I am determined to hear it.
I guess my point is that we live in a world where articles are posted every day like "30 Things You Need to Know Before You Turn 30". There are these societal goals that try to tell us where we should be in our lives, and for some reason, we accept that. We don't challenge these norms or see where life takes us if we take a left instead of a right. We go through the motions without ever asking ourselves, "why?" We are so busy trying to meet these check points that we never stop and make sure we actually want to meet them. Life seems to be too short to just go through the motions and never make sure that our job as an adult doesn't match up with our passions. I am going to make a conscious effort to make sure that my meaning of life isn't to just follow these life stages, but to actually know what makes me get out of bed in the morning.
