A thing I like about living longer is that at last, I have arrived at what I believe to be a balanced view of life. I’ve experienced and lived enough lives and played multiple parts in different realities of various socio-economic scenes that I’ve come to understand a few things about people. And of course, myself.

One observation is that we are more alike than we are different. Everybody just wants to be happy, to see their family happy, and to live free (whatever that looks like for them). Everybody has a story, everybody has had something terrible and difficult to deal with. Every single person. You’d think that would make us be a little more kind and compassionate towards each other, wouldn’t you? Instead, it often turns into some kind of weirdo pissing competition, a war of words to argue whose story is the worst, who had it toughest. Who is allowed to have feelings about what etc.

Another thing I’ve noticed about people is that consciously or unconsciously, everyone is looking for the key to make it all click in their lives. 

That one thing that makes everything else make sense. The thing that opens it for us. That serves as the catalyst for everything else to shift within us. Some people find that click through church, others through sports, reading, introspection, or music, and some find it by working with a mentor, therapist, or coach. Often it’s as simple as overhearing a conversation or a song.

I would go ahead and say that there are as many ways to find the key that makes it click, as there are people in the world. And nobody is wrong. What works for one person will not always work for another, that just means it’s wrong for them. Not wrong for everyone. 

Many of us spend so long and such a huge amount of energy in our search for self-understanding and knowledge, aware that what we are learning makes sense and we can see that it is useful.  We can also see that all we have to do is implement simple changes to our habits, or diet, or thoughts, or exercise routine, or meditation practice, or self-care – or whatever, and it would start the transformation we seek. Stumbling around in the dark, telling ourselves we’ve got this. Just need that…one…more…thing.

And as much as we know all these random pieces of information, and can see the use in them, we do not change. And then we beat ourselves up with thoughts of what we should be doing. Sometimes we make it even more difficult for ourselves by letting the bully in our heads double down with the threats and self-flagellation. 

Often it feels like you are involved in a race to either the dark or the light, silently wondering which will win…the desperate sense of hopelessness, futility, and darkness or the version of yourself that does the things and takes the time, that turns towards the light…the side that has discovered the thing that enables you to set your thinking free. The key.

Sometimes it takes years. Wavering with uncertainty between dark and light. Always aware when we are spending too much time staring into the void, still looking. Silently judging ourselves. With enough moments and glimpses of the true ecstasy of pure love and joy, feeling that everything in the world is good, to keep us looking, striving to recapture the know-how to get there on purpose. 

Even when it feels incredibly far away we still search, subconsciously yearning, unsure of what exactly it is we need or are even looking for,  searching for that piece of information that triggers that moment of clarity and shift in thinking when suddenly everything makes sense. 

And then, when you find the key and experience the click, the shift is almost magical, a noticeable level up of consciousness and thinking. You are aware of being different. An internal flip, if you will. 

Often you are aware of feeling different, being different, changed on a deep and fundamental level. The things that would have you all caught up emotionally previously, don’t affect you anymore, or, if they do you only experience it for a moment. And then when you let it go, it’s gone.

You are aware that previous triggers become clear and easy for you to define, name, and let go of, it becomes easy to do the things for yourself, easy to understand others’ points of view, and easy to tell your truth. 

It’s like suddenly the pendulum of your psyche which swung wildly for so long from one side to the other, taking up so much space in your head and your heart as you swung, has calmed and is centered and is still, leaving so much space in your thoughts, heart, and head, that it is not difficult to actually do the things that are beneficial for your own journey, because you want to and it makes so much sense. It becomes easy.

So, naturally, you think that the key that made it all click for you would be the thing that makes it click for those nearest and dearest to you too. But generally, it is not. That being said though, when you share something that does the same for them, it is truly the foundation of a mutual admiration club forever. 

I don’t know about what’s going on in your head, but I have at least two voices babbling away at any one time, and discovering the key that made it all click switched the inner voice of the bully with the inner voice of grace. You know that very quiet one that you often do not even acknowledge for years. Occasionally you are aware of its whispers, but usually, it was so quiet and I filled myself with so many distractions and so much noise I was barely aware of it. 

But now, the grace-filled-loving voice is the loud one. The bully is the quiet easy-to-tune-out one, and I am so grateful. I can easily ignore the critic and bully, and I want to hug my younger self for the trauma I put myself through. Because a version of myself did put me through a lot of unnecessary stress and trauma, we truly are the most awful to ourselves, aren’t we? When we know better, we do better. 

But I knew I couldn’t give up, I knew I would find a way to let my quiet voice be heard for longer than a moment, I wanted to hear what she had to say, I wanted to embrace my own potential and creativity, I wanted to be encouraged by love, I knew she was worthy of being nurtured, I knew I was worthy of being nurtured, so I kept going, and I learned to nurture myself. 

And, along the way, I realized it’s only when we die, that it is all over for us, no more chances. You may have felt like you were dying before, dragging through your life reeling from something you had a hard time dealing with, but you didn’t die and you got another day, another week, another month, another season, another year, and so on and so on. It is so easy to underappreciate the miracle that we wake up every day.

We really do owe it to ourselves, to the people we aspire to be, the ones who know they are not quite living up to their full potential. The ones that want better for themselves, for their thinking, for their lives, and by association their families and loved ones too. We owe it to all the people we’ve loved and known whose lives were cut short, we owe it to death to live our lives as fully as we can, keep searching for the right fit, the right people, the key for the click to be the catalyst in our lives.

Because it is so worth it.