The Eighty Year Old Me

Someone posed the question this evening about what I really wanted from life. Many years ago he had asked himself the same question. He had realized that what he was currently doing then was not making him happy, but he had also not known what it was he wanted from life. So he made a few changes in his work and took some time to contemplate. Over a period of time, each day he would asked himself: "What do I really want from my life?" He took to imagining himself sitting on a porch, aged 83, looking back on his life and what it was that would make him feel happy about the life he had lived. It took him a while but he finally figured it out and then went about living his life in a way that each day would contribute towards it. Among other things he decided that he wanted to deeply love others and to be helpful to others. And so each day he seeks to find new ways to express love and to be helpful.

As I pondered his question, I realized that I too am unsure about what it is I really want from life. Sitting on that porch in my eighties, what is it that would bring me the feeling of a life well spent? As I pondered, two surprises struck me. Firstly, for the most part I had no idea what it was that would bring me that satisfaction. And secondly, of the few things I perhaps could immediately imagine, I realized that I was doing a poor job working towards them. My current vision of that old man version of me sitting on the porch, seemed to be a individual filled with regret for missed opportunities. That vision scared me. 

With five decades of my life already come and gone, I feel so much of it has been wasted. I feel like a ship without a rudder that has drifted aimlessly in the currents, not reaching any destination, nor making progress towards any. It reminds me a little of that moment in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, when Alice is trying to work out which way to go and meets the Cheshire Cat. 

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where --" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you walk," said the Cat.

Just like Alice, when we do not know where we want to go in life, it does not really make a difference which way we go. The thought of getting to the end of my life without having reached anywhere I would have wanted to go, or even getting part way there, troubles me. As such I have determined that I too would take some time to regularly ask myself what I want of my life, until I discover what that might be. Of the few things I already do know I want, I have also determined that I would strive each day to do something that contributed to making them a reality.

As I set out on this new road of discovery, I would also challenge you to ask of yourself what it is that you really want from life. What would your eighty year old version be happy looking back with satisfaction on? If you already know what it is, then are your actions each day contributing towards it? I for one do not want to be sat there full of regrets. What about you?