Thoughts on Life
Recently, I have been doing a lot of thinking about life. Its meaning. Its purpose. More specifically, why am I here and what in the hell do I want to do with my life?
It used to be simple. Survive long enough to reproduce. That was it. That was the goal.
Today, we live longer. Have more choices. More opportunities to do anything we want. Yet, it’s harder than ever to decide on anything.
Paralysis by analysis has kicked in. There are so many options for what to do with our lives that we seem to not make any choices. We flow through letting life happen to us. Letting the wind take us where it may and only later do we look back and think, “How the fuck did I get here?”
Or maybe it’s just me.
Everyone else seems to have it all figured out. They seem happy with every aspect of their lives and it makes me wonder if I’m the only one with these thoughts and feelings. Loneliness is cruel bitch.
Alone or not though, the thoughts and feelings are the same. I am not ready to die.
At 30 years old, death seems so far off. I am relatively healthy and in shape. I have no underlying health conditions that I am aware of and I don’t smoke.
However, I also know that the life expectancy for my demographic is 78 and in less than 10 years, I will be halfway there. Looking at the years I may have left with good health, I am already there.
While I hope to live much longer than that and likely probably will given that I would say I take better than average care of myself and medical advancements are likely to assist, I know that I can’t bank on that. For all of my purposes, I need to assume that I have about 30 or so good years left.
With that in mind, I have been doing lots of reading, listening to podcasts, and thinking about life and what I want from it lately. I’m still working through it all, but I can tell that my mindset is shifting.
Growing up I wanted to be rich. You asked me what I wanted and I would say success. Mostly, to me, that meant financial success. I wanted more money than I could ever spend. I was determined to start a business that put me on the Forbes list and made Justin Barker a household name.
I started several business and tried different things, but that goal always seemed to take the fun out of them. Instead of enjoying the process, I was so caught up in the result that if the business didn’t immediately succeed then I felt like a failure. Failure was bad, so I quit. How foolish I have been.
Starting at 30 years old, I want to change that. I am committing myself to letting go of those thoughts and feelings. I am committing myself to learning to love the process. To seeing things through. To learning how to let go of caring what other people think. To living life on my own terms.
A recent example is photography. I absolutely love taking photos. I look at other photographers though and I realize how bad my stuff is relative to theirs. I mean, my pictures are good, but they aren’t being featured in any magazines or winning any awards. So I started to let go of photography over the last several months. I still take photos, but I don’t share them anymore like I used to. I figured no one cared so why continue? I’m letting go of that though.
Photography to me is a way of capturing memories. And I want to collect all the memories that I can. I want to look back on a life of adventure and excitement and know that I truly lived. I may never have any of my photos really recognized, but it doesn’t matter. I love it and I enjoy the process of getting better. Trying out new techniques and constantly improving my skillset. It’s not about what others think of my photos. It’s about capturing the moment for myself and the people that were there with me.
I’m starting to realize that maybe a lot of things in life are that way. It’s about the process and who you become as a person through that process more than the rewards and accolades of achieving any specific goal. No more not doing something because I can’t be the best. It’s all about the journey.