Time and again people come to me looking for something outside of themselves that will make them happy.
Looking for a different speciality, a different job, a different life.
Always the endless search for the solution to the feeling of emptiness, of discontent, and sometimes of despair.
And this quest is always external – always looking to the job, the person, the situation to change and make things OK. Always looking outside – externally for a new situation that will make everything ok.
But I fear this endless and restless search is destined to be fruitless.
Time and again I’ve seen people find the way forward from within.
It’s by looking inwards, peering into our essence – into our souls if you like – where we find the wellsprings of hope and meaning.
Inside us, if we care to look, if we can summon the courage, is where we find that we are already, perfectly and miraculously in exactly the right place.
The meaning and purpose to our lives is not out there to be chased. Rather it’s within us already – within us where it lies waiting to be discovered… and uncovered.
We are the one’s that make the meaning – we don’t need to keep chasing it. We just need to stop and listen.
We just need to see…it’s not the job, the money or the person that will give us the answer we seek to fill the void.
Rather, it’s about living as human a life as possible within any situation – it’s the attitude we bring no matter the external facts.
Life, work and love is what we make of it. It’s not what life owes us…but, as Viktor Frankl said, it’s what we owe to life.
The key question life keeps asking us, whatever the situation, is how we are going to respond. It’s not about why things are happening, but what we are going to do.
And the answer to that my friends, can only come from within.
