On showing up with no mission

Yes, we have all faced this – we want to do something, but the wanting is so much stronger than the commitment, and the excuses are so much stronger than the confidence. If only you put your commitment and confidence before your wishful thinking and excuses, so many beautiful things could come out of you. Your personality can find so many manifestations…if only.

There is a way out of this vicious circle. Do you see the vicious circle? You are already one foot out.

Inner battle

“Show up. Show up. Just show up. This is what matters.” you press your ears with your hands as if to prevent the sound from coming from outside, but the sound is in your head. The little voice in your head is yet again showing up more than you do. It intimidates you. It makes you feel uncomfortable (my little voice wants me to write, yours might be any different sort of a bugger).

Excuses

You are so uncomfortable, that you are able to find any possible excuse to not do what your little voice is asking you to do. You are hungry. You really need to buy a new pajama, right now. But why so much stress, just relax and enjoy your evening on your cozy couch, so undemanding, true friend. Even if you started doing what “the little bugger” is prompting you to do, most likely you will come up with some garbage. You are so uninspired, there is no muse. Better to stare in a spot on the wall, maybe you find the muse there. No muse? You are definitely not talented then. Talented people always have their game on…

Showing up

You are so guilty to your little voice, that you decide it needs to go for a walk.  But it is raining outside, and it is cold, and it is dark and it is unwelcoming. You don’t want to go, but if you don’t, you have to actually compose yourself and do something useful or creative with your time.  Walk it is.

Rain boots on, rain coat on, nothing will stop you. You just show your face off the door, another issue. You have NO MISSION. Great. You went for a walk to avoid facing the fact that you have no mission, to face the fact that you have no mission.

And then you make a step and then another and just start walking. Maybe you will discover something, and maybe you won’t. But then you start looking hard…not easy to see things in the city. But sometimes the mission comes on its own. Maybe your mission on that walk IS to connect with the city. You can only discover it, if you are not looking for something specific. 

There will be garbage

Then you start seeing the garbage in the street, broken pavement, busy faces, sad faces, forgotten buildings. But then you also see the green moss creeping over an old stone fence, the nature finding its place back in the city. Then you see a person sitting alone and observing the passing-by dogs and people, maybe his only escape from loneliness. Then you see a child looking at a flock of dirty pigeons with eyes full of the purest joy and curiosity.

Finding a gem in the garbage

Likewise, sometimes you start writing but words simply do not come. Or they are rubbish. You write and scratch and hit yourself in the head and you think “why am I even pushing myself, why am I staring at this screen if I have nothing to say at this moment.” For the same reason that you went around the city – just to show up. Every single day. Then the gem will come.

Take a few more tiny doses of life here.

Some related content:
On how to recognize a soul
On being nice