All through school, you were good at things. You got better at them, you graduated, and eventually you found a job that you were (also) good at. And because you were good at things, you got some promotions, and some of the trappings of life came along, and maybe a relationship and some kids, or maybe a cat and some good friends, but you’ve made it. At least well enough to take the occasional vacation, if you had the time.
But underneath it all you have a sneaking sensation that something went wrong along the way.
The happiness in your world is sort of on the surface: lots of small talk, no big questions. Dinner conversation strays to politics pretty often, but you don’t remember the last time you stayed up late talking about philosophy and the meaning of life. You read George Monbiot and you’ve got a handle on global warming, even if you despair of us ever doing anything about it. You may even vote consistently for people that you are pretty sure are never going to have a chance of winning.
But you want more than this.
You want to get out of bed in the morning feeling like you’re really going to make a difference. You want deep connection, conversations that do more than gloss over the surfaces of things. You want to feel like there’s hope, and like you’re doing something to contribute to it.
But your education is standing in the way. You’ve spent so much time studying structures and how they work that you’re pretty sure you don’t know how to attack them. You become paralyzed by the number of causes that your friends support, and you want to make sure that your efforts are targeted in the best direction, but sometimes that means you do nothing.
You might even find yourself playing video games to get away from the guilt.
No matter how tempting it may be, do not succumb to, “Is that all there is?”
The question you need to face now is, “What else is there?”