If you’re seeking guidance to add meaning in life, here’s a good read for you.
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20 Jan 2022
4 Min Read
Victor Wong (Guest Contributor), Josephine Serena (Editor)
If you’re seeking guidance to add meaning in life, here’s a good read for you.
Another day has ended, we’d lie in our bed, questioning ourselves what we did for the day. This is a familiar situation to some of us. Sometimes, we just don’t know what we really want to do, besides those assignments that are nearing their due date. But that’s a responsibility we’re obliged to complete, without such obligation, we’d waste our time away.
Very often we contemplate life choices, heck, even daily life decisions. There’s so much interference from thinking processes that it’s very easy to fall into an endless loop of thinking, rather than focusing on living our lives. If it deviates into the negative side, things turn pointless and seem dull, we hardly grasp on the things that drive us forward. There are a few important factors that often weigh us down when such happens and one of them is our self-worth.
Sometimes, or at the end of the day, we’ll think we’ve simply not done enough or we amount to nothing when compared to others. If you, too, have similar thoughts, you’re not alone. It’s very hard to acknowledge our own efforts, but very easy to notice others’. But seeing other people progress doesn’t mean we’ve not made progress, we may have simply leveled up without realising it.
At times when we intend to bring ourselves forward, there seems to be doubts that accompany us. “I don’t think I can do this.” We might be scared that we’re not up to standards or we might fail because we’re not confident enough in our own abilities. The reality is, they’re all just voices in our head.
Don’t be swayed by the uncertainties because life wouldn’t be meaningful if we could foresee every outcome. Take a leap of faith, and do the things you’ve always wanted to do.
Van Gogh once said, “If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
Don’t be trapped by that imaginary barrier that limits all possibilities.
We may have tried convincing ourselves with the results of the efforts we’ve been given. But very often, the voice in our head refutes our statement. So, the only way we can dispute it is through our actions. The hardest part will always be the first step, so we must never sweat ourselves to produce noticeable results.
The satisfaction from noticeable progress is a side dish, having fun while doing things is the most important part. So, with all that said, how do we attempt to change?
The first step is quite cliché, which is to discover ourselves and what we like to do. Perhaps, if you’re a creative and imaginative person, you may find your way through drawing or writing. Or if you’re an athletic person, you might find jogging or going to the gym as a way to be yourself.
These are all just some examples of what we can do, the important part is that you’re able to be yourself while doing it.
If you’re unsure of what you are really into, you can try taking the MBTI personality test or search up different kinds of hobbies on YouTube and see what interests you most. These activities are crucial in our daily lives as our fallback.
When everything else seems to be a worry, take a break and indulge in yourself, you deserve it. They’ll make life more contentful, enjoyable, and prove that we’re capable beings.
The act of taking a step forward for yourself is a very courageous one, but at the same time it might also inflict exhaustion. You may suffer a burnout from trying too hard. If you force progress out of yourself, you’ll easily lose your motivation. Therefore, everything must be done in moderation.
You may feel like if you escape the place you’re in right now, you might no longer be yourself. But that’s never the truth, because if you think about what would happen, it’s still going to be you, but with a new and/or different perspective.
When the cerulean clouds move away and the warm light shines through, would you open your door and set foot outside or would you close the curtains and stay inside? If however, you wish to change, but think you couldn’t keep up with it, you can try making a schedule and stick to it.
Using drawing as an example, maybe you can try drawing something every two or three days. It doesn’t have to be daily, it just has to be consistent. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, as long as you made something through that routine.
They’ll be gifts that you can give yourself, because you deserve gifts from yourself too.
Sometimes it can be difficult to look for meaning in life. But if we succumb to it, life will turn colourless. So, we can only rely on ourselves, to pick up that color pencil, and start recolouring it.
Although it’ll be a long process, and you might gradually get tired, you’ll have to learn how to commit to it, because in the end, it’ll be worth it.
Victor is currently pursuing a Bachelor in Software Engineering at Taylor's University. He is also developing web applications and practising competitive programming in his free time.
