The first step to no regrets and dissolving self-doubt
Don't get caught getting ready to love your life
In times of confusion, when I’m not sure where I’m headed in life, I have a north star that I return to.
I was reminded of this north star while listening to someone share their struggles with lack of direction in this YouTube video. The story being shared is one that I’m sure many of you will be familiar with. A woman shares her therapeutic journey from early life experiences, how she developed people-pleasing tendencies as a defense mechanism, and then eventually losing touch with what she really wants in life.
While trying to prove herself to others and perform for them, she lost touch with her own desires, interests and counsel.
I was reminded of that familiar feeling of being stuck in a spiral of self-criticism and self-doubt, that makes you unable to know what to do next.
We all find ourselves with times like this. Feeling aimless. Bogged down in indecision. Unsure where to go next, trying to predict the future and afraid that we’ll make the ‘wrong’ choice.
When we find our self in this situation, struggling with the complexity of life, we need to keep it simple.
Here is my simple first step toward finding your vocation:
“Do all things with love”.
When you don’t know what you are good at anymore:
Do all things with love.
When you can’t decide whether to stay in that job or go to something new:
Do all things with love.
When you are in a prison of indecision, and it seems like every option might lead to regrets:
Do all things with love.
Right where you are now:
Do all things with love and you can’t go wrong.
You can’t go wrong, because love is the best way to be.
I learnt this from Pete Rollins. It doesn’t matter if you believe life is meaningful, if you do not love you will experience it as meaningless. And it works both ways. Even if you believe life is utterly meaningless, if you love, you cannot help but experience it as overflowing with meaning.
Imagine a person who does all things with love.
It doesn’t matter what they started with, their life will become glorious. They are the kinds of people who bring richness to the wedding just as much as the wake. For the person who does all things with love, there is no missing out. They make the most of everything, always bringing their full selves. FOMO is a distant memory. Regrets are from a former time when there was fear of harsh self criticism and condemnation. Those who live like this are confident that they won’t get caught getting ready to love their life. They’re already doing it.
Don’t you want to be them? Any man or woman who can do such a thing with their life inspires jealousy and admiration from anyone they encounter, no matter how humble their specific work.
In the Christian tradition, our specific calling, our specific vocation is actually not our primary purpose. Our primary calling is to love1.
If your ideas of what you should do with your life cannot fit happily inside of this definition, you’re off track.
And if you are bewildered, tired of looking for a way out of the woods, then let yourself off the hook. It’s not your job to predict the future. Your job is to love.
Resolve to do all things with love, right here, right now, as your only next step.
Then find the next best thing to be done in love.
Then the next.
And the next.
This should become an unquestioned axiom of your life. Start right where you are now. No excuses.
Godspeed,
TMo.
Because God is love. And our aim is to become love.