The Choice to Wander
Being lost, wandering through life, is not a particularly good experience.
It’s something we usually avoid thinking about, just as we dodge the inevitable questions around the holiday dinner table.
“So, what are you going to do with your life?”
“When are you going to finally get a real job?”
Wandering can bring with it a profound sense of shame. Why do we have so much trouble with a map that seems to make sense for everyone else? Society seem to prize a clear direction and success that comes from planned achievements on the road to an understood purpose. For some people, this seems to work out fine. For me, and others like me, not so much.
But the problem with being disappointed in yourself for not know what you want to be when you grow up by the time you’re thirty-five is that you end up not just being ashamed of mistakes or decisions you made intentionally – you’re ashamed of who you are as a person. You internalize the idea that there is just something fundamentally wrong with you. You’re a waste of all the gifts you know you’ve been given in life.
But what if this indecision isn’t a weakness at all? What if there are discoveries about yourself that only you can make, and those discoveries take longer than you’d like, and they can only be made off the beaten path? What if wandering was the best choice for you, but instead of embracing it and using it, you felt bad about it and tried to be different?
Creative wandering.
I’m not talking about accepting the feelings of defeat that come when you admit you have no clear strategy for your life. I’m talking about using wandering as the strategy – the decision to take all the time you need to figure out where you’re really meant to be. Not a drifter. An adventurer. An explorer. And not for fun, or to avoid responsibility. This is important work that only you can do. Work that is necessary for you to come into your own in the right place at the right time. To truly see what matters in your life and do the work that with your talents and your perspective, only you can do. No concerns about accomplishments or destinations.
Sometimes to find your way you have to get lost.
And hold on to the firm belief that somewhere out there is a place where you fit perfectly, even if you have to make it for yourself.