Can we expect to wake up, go to work (or do the house-hold thing if you don’t work), eat, sleep and then start all over again doing exactly the same thing ad infinitum? Are we merely marking time with routine until we die?
Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result”. Yet, this is what we do. Why is there such a longing within us that says this can’t be all there is – that surely my life has more meaning than that? We look everywhere for an answer to this because this incessant yearning has to mean something… it can’t exist without any purpose, can it?
So we look at our relationships first and foremost. If we have been in the same one for a long time, perhaps we shall start to question if they were really the right one for us or, if life has just become comfortable and habitual rather than truly loving, spontaneous and passionate? Are we expecting too much – of partners, ourselves and our lives? Do we hold an unshakeable ideal in our heads that fills us with longing to the point where we are blinded to the truth before us? Why did we marry or enter into our relationship in the first place? Were we trying to defy loneliness, wanting to feel acknowledged, really in love? Are we with them for the same reason now?
Relationships evolve over time; nothing remains the same as it once was because no person remains the same as they once were. Do partners drift apart because their personal development occurs at a different rate and hence, they no longer think alike or share common ideas on life? Is it possible for a partner who may have given up a lot of things to be in this relationship to eventually answer their own call, the one they have ignored for so long, the one they have denied themselves for whatever reason? Do we stay in relationships way past their use by date for convenience, to keep the kids happy, for financial reasons? Are we then living in truth or are we choosing to trap ourselves within an expectation or obligation?
Is it them we question, or is it us?
We spend our time and energy questioning careers, too. Is this the right job for me? Do I feel excited and passionate about what I have chosen to do or do I want more? Do I believe I have missed my chance at doing what I am good at and what I love? Again, are our expectations ridiculously high? Is this really as good as it is going to get for us? Are you doing what ignites your insides and lights up your life or is this job a means to an end? Life can be a very long time to do something that allows us to merely exist. Is there a perfect job for each of us or, do we simply resign ourselves to what we have and settle for that?
What then do you tell that incessant feeling within you for it is not going to be satisfied with a ‘put up and shut up’ attitude for very long?
I suppose it depends on what you think this feeling within you is all about. Is it your mid-life crisis? What if you are not old enough to have one yet? Is it that you may have lived with regrets for long enough and now it is time to do something for you? Perhaps this urge and sense of being dissatisfied comes from unreasonable expectations and of hoping that we are worth more than those things we do? Can people’s dreams co-exist without compromise? Whose dream is more important then? Have we accepted that our lives are what they are and so we just allow one day to blur into the other?
This feeling is your wake-up call. I believe we reach a point in life where we can no longer ignore that which we were meant to be, do, see, feel or experience, so our soul sets about reminding us that there is so much more to us than what we believe and think there is. We begin our quest to discover who we really are and what we are really supposed to be doing here. And the prize for this quest… the reason we pursue it?
It is to feel whole; to hold all aspects of who we are together in one package at last. It is of living with meaning created from the inside-out. It is about being authentic, honest and totally truthful with ourselves. It is the ultimate in ‘balance’.
If life was as good as it gets no one would strive for anything. There would be no hope, nothing to dream about and no point to anything. Simply going through the motions is not living at all – and aren’t you worth more than that?
Evaluating our lives is part of maturing and it is also a means to establish what is right for us. It is a process we undertake in order to become the most authentic individual we can. If we avoid addressing this feeling within us, but expect change, then our life becomes the definition of insanity.
