When do we find out what we are doing with life?

Spoiler alert: Nobody has the answer.

I have reached that age of my life when we start looking for books with titles like ‘Finding Meaning after Midlife’ or ‘How to Navigate Midlife Crisis?’

or if put more explicitly, ‘Where the heck am I going with my life?’

In brief, I have started looking for the ‘correct’ answers. Please highlight the word ‘correct’.

Because there is no more room for error now.

The time is now or never.

I need the answers now. Urgent.

Well, the questions, had always been there.

Last week my sister, who’s in her early twenties sent me a reel where someone who’s 25 is asking,

‘When will we find out what we are doing with life?’

It took me back to my twenties, where the same question popped up every now and then.

And not just the twenties, I had asked the question even the day before.

I told her,

Not yet for me, little sister. Not yet in this midlife years.

So that’s what’s happening lately in life.

Life is filled with thoughts about CLARITY.

I am asking in and around my circles,

Do you have CLARITY? Or how did you get that clarity? Please give a road map. Or do you suggest any books/courses/skills that help figure it out like you did?

Of course, there are many resources they suggest and sometimes I find myself in my Google recommendations. (The algorithm is more concerned about you, right?)

But do those resources work? Does it bring you answers? Does it help you decide the path like everyone else? Never sure. It might or it might not.

You might have a breakthrough or you might end up hogging just another resource.

Because, however cliche it sounds, life is such.

Everyone has to go through their share of struggles and quests to find out what they are doing with their life.

Nobody has the timeline of the journey with them.

We all might (/might not) find our clarity in our destined times. Till then, life is about being curious enough to seek that for our life.

Then what’s really important now for you and me? At whatever age we are now?

Whatever is in our hands right now- Life at present.

As John Lennon sang,

Life is what happens to us while we are busy making other plans.

The point being, it is okay if we haven’t figured everything out at any point in our lives. We all are works in progress and have different unknown timelines to play the part. We might need to keep looking and be open to embracing the answers when we find them.

But all the while, remember that the most crucial part is whatever’s happening with us right now.

Remind ourselves regularly to notice the ‘ordinary life moments’ while we are busy looking for the answers to our life’s big questions.

Enjoy the present. Be grateful for the people and the love around us. Look for the little glimmers of happiness we find in our everyday lives.

Find the joy in the journey and in the plans-whether the plan works or not. Savour the moments of different emotions we get to experience in this little time we have.

Read more. Write more. See more. Travel more.

Do more. Experience more. Learn more.

No matter how ‘sorted’ you feel about it all.

Because, otherwise, we will miss the whole point of it all.

— being vibrantly vigorously beautifully breathtakingly alive.

“Life is waiting for you. You might be stuck here for a while, but the world isn’t going anywhere. Hang on in there. Life is always worth it.”

-MATT HAIG

Originally published at https://farzanarijas.substack.com.