Humans have a depth limit when we dive into the ocean. There is a certain point where the pressure will kill you, as the volume and weight of the water above you becomes too much. So why try to take on more than you can? Why overload our brain with our life as whole and not live in the present? Is there an answer to inner peace. I am constantly looking for it, for meaning, for purpose. One time on a podcast four words I heard rung true and bounced around my skull for weeks. The gentleman said, “The purpose is you”. Okay that is all fine and dandy, but I just don’t get it.

You see we think the money will make us feel better, money comes and we’re still depressed. We chase and chase, and internally still struggle. Work, relationships, friends, muscles, careers, success, nothing fills the void within. To some the answer is found religion, others find it in nature, at one point I found it in sport. Recently I cannot find it anymore and I am baffled at my lack of answers. A constant weight sits on my chest, pounding me into the abyss of anxiety and I cannot seem to even think my way out like I have in the past.

Reality is, much like everyone else, I suffer more in the confines of my mind than in reality. The world goes on, life goes on, yet our thoughts spiral us into a negativity bias so constantly that we cannot distinguish between real pain and imaginary pain.

Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.”

– Epictetus

Extensively I have spoken about focusing on what you can control and accepting what you cannot control. I don’t know why that script is so easy to say, and so hard to apply. From the outside looking in, my life is average but great. Routine is good and somewhat healthy, I have lots of love in my life, decent hobbies and a few long- and short-term goals. Where is the problem? In the corners of my mind. It taunts me and tortures me. I must do more, achieve more, be more. Envisioning life as this quest, exercising huge decisions and tunnel visioning on the bigger picture only to forget to see what is in front of me.

Don’t let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you. Don’t fill your mind with all the bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation.”

– Marcus Aurelius

Why dive so deep into the ocean and put your body under so much pressure, risking death and injury. Take it metre by metre, similarly, take life one day at a time.

I wrote this piece with no real advice in mind, just an excuse to pour my thoughts onto a blank page. Sometimes it helps me re-organize my thoughts and sometimes it just motivates me to pick myself up. Starting from rock bottom is not a foreign concept to me, I have rebuilt myself many times. Just this time even though I am not technically in the process of rebuilding, rather I am repairing, I feel more hammered down by my life than ever before.

Time will tell what my internal peace will cost. Craving purpose and searching for it isn’t working, routine isn’t working, and no big decisions I can make anymore that will improve my quality of life. I guess the only way forward is to take my own advice and attempt to take things day by day, hopefully slowly the weight on my chest is incrementally lifted.

All the Best

H