I frequently wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with my heart racing.
Since I started an unclear entrepreneurial path years ago, I have become fully consumed by the fear that I may not be satisfied with the way things turn out for me in this life. The irony is that I have never felt so alive, so human. I can feel my mortality and the limits of who I am or could be, but these cold truths are strongly coupled with the thrill of understanding what I am made of.
In the past, I was looking at my life from behind a tempered glass window, safe from the elements and able to blame others for not cleaning my panes. I was floating through an impenetrable fog of indecision and existential angst that I assumed would pass with time, and paradoxically grew to feel entitled. I remember feeling as if one day I would be ready to take on the world, but that at that moment I was not. Maybe with a “few more years of school” or after a “few more summers of self-reflection” I would reach a profound understanding of my purpose in this world and would then see clearly the path to achieve it.
Well, I never got the “light bulb” feeling of self-awareness that I had thought that one day would come over me. In fact, with each passing moment behind that glass wall, I was not feeling closer to success, but instead the onset of a bitterness that would grow into a terminal and cynical decrepitude. Who was to blame for this? The poor man who didn’t come to wash my window panes was me.
I used to think that academia would bring me to a summit of nirvana, a place where all truth and understanding about oneself and the world could be relished. In reality, it taught me to masturbate my mind. In the depths of my textbooks I had the pleasure of deriving intellectual pleasure from independent study and pedagogical enlightenments. Instead of opening up my mind, my mind was narrowing because of the hours of intellectual specialization that were draining my thoughts of creativity and wonder. I began to inadvertently analyze my dreams with the bias of “objectivity” and demystify their existence. I decided what was reality and fantasy, and justified what could be and what could never be. Essentially, I became a scientist.
I used to think that industry could draw the clearest picture of what the world was. I deduced that in order for multibillion dollar organizations to have come into existence, the massive corporations that ran those organizations must have reached amassed an understanding of the inner workings of human beings. They must have drawn the big picture of how people and science fit together into society with keen corporate strategists who had applied the theory from their academic counterparts.
As a last resort for deriving meaning from life was to seek spiritual refuge. I was raised as a man of God and I believe that there is value in adopting a Christ-centric faith. However, I feel that a moderate spiritual dose helps stabilize a person throughout his/her life. As we grow, we change perspectives and encounter greater degrees of uncertainty, and faith serves as a source of energy and strength as opposed to a debilitating whip of morality.
I realize that if I don’t do anything, I will never find meaning in life. If I don’t risk anything, I won’t lose my irreproachability. I could go my whole life without making a mistake if I just play it safe enough. Nobody would see me fail. I would have no regrets to account for and life would be sweet. Let’s Get Real.
Now I won’t condone the Mr. Underwood’s approach to life, but I believe there is an tolerable margin within which people should feel guiltless and free to act. There is a way to justify every action, however the justifications we choose for our behavior ultimately define who we are as individuals. I now that I am stripped of all protection, all excuses, and am entirely open and vulnerable to the world with no panes between me and the clock of the world. I am now empowered by the strength of my convictions, and I can go anywhere I allow myself to.
Mindset Uplift 