What Do You Do When You're Confused?

“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

Mitch Albom

“The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else."


Eric Hoffer
 

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

C. S. Lewis

What do you do when you’re confused?  Angry?  Scared?  Lonely?  What do you do when you don’t know if you’re making the right decisions?  What do you do when you don’t know what to do? 

I write. 

That’s what I do.  

That is what almost always clears my head.   Writing is what reminds me that my thoughts are just thoughts, nothing else, unless I choose to make them more than that.  Writing reminds me that I have power over my thoughts.

  Tonight I have felt all the emotions described above and I knew I had to write.  Why?  Why do I choose to write?  There are a few reasons. 

First, it is, for me, the most cathartic form of release.  It’s my therapy, my healing agent, and my comfort.  It’s the thing I can do when I can’t do anything else.  And, in fact, when I’m writing, I don’t need to do anything else.  This is where I’m supposed to be and this is what I’m supposed to be doing.  This is where I release my anger, my sadness and my fear.  This is where I become the person I am supposed to be.   That person is absent far too often from my daily life, but he always shows up here.

The other person who shows up here is the woman I love…my muse.  She has read every one of these blogs.  This is no surprise since she also helped me write every one of them.  Without her I have very little motivation or energy.  Sometimes she makes me work for a while before she tells me what to say.  At other times she gets right to it.  Either way works as long as she is with me.

So I write.  And I keep writing.  I write until my head is clear.  I write until I have found my message.  And then I keep writing.  Sometimes I write because I know I have a tangible goal and I want to reach it.  I need to reach it.  There have been too many times in my life when I fell short of my goals, far short…but not this time.    This time I’m going to finish what I started.  By the end of this month, God willing, I will have written 200 blogs.

What frees you?  Is it also writing?  Is it dancing?  Working with children?  Bringing physical or emotional healing?  Can you make music?  Is there a group of people who need your love because they have been forgotten by the world?  Can you focus on your job more?  Do you cook?  Is there a book you need to write?

You are here for a purpose.  Whatever your spiritual beliefs, believe this:  God put you on this earth for a reason, for many reasons.   All of those reasons involve loving yourself and loving others.  They all involve making the world a better place in a way that you and only you can do.  Without you, your mission cannot be accomplished. 

In this way, I have been able to dispel confusion and sadness from my life.  They may return and if they do, then I must be even more focused on my mission.

That’s it.  That’s my message for now.  Shorter than usual, but quantity is not always quality. 

My other message is to Get Started and Keep Going.