Episode 110: Finding Yourself

What in life deserves our time and attention, and what things don't? I hope that as we consider that question, along with other topics on this show, that we can all learn to live our lives just a little more intentionally. This is Seth Roberts. Thanks for joining me on Skipping Stones - “Finding Yourself.”

I think when we talk about finding ourselves, it can mean a lot of things. But most of the time, in a practical sense, it means to learn how you want to move through life. Where I think we get stuck, though, is the idea that we need to find it. What matters to you in life does not necessarily reside in some deep corner of your soul that needs to be discovered. What matters is something you have to decide.

Too often we wait for some purpose or meaning to carry us away. But when it comes down to it, people do what they wanna do. But some people do what they wanna do in the moment, and the people trying to find themselves are trying to figure out what they want the sum of their actions to add up to. I don't think the answer to that has to be complicated or even specific.

A lot of people just want to be a good person, and I think that's good enough. Unfortunately, a lot of us are cursed to always feel like we were meant for more, and it compels us to keep on looking, even if maybe we've already found it. I think it helps, though, to recognize that we're inherently part of something bigger than ourselves just by simply existing in society.

This world rolls forward because of the billions of people that live in it, and sometimes the epic purpose we're seeking out in our lives belongs to more than one person, and we may only be a small part of it. Being the man that I am, I wanna think I'm the focal point of an incredible story of consequential importance.] 

But in the grand scheme of things, no matter how significant my actions and feats in life are, I'll only ever be just a small part. How can I really say I'm contributing to the eternal dance of the universe any better than a woman that spends all her free time helping at the animal shelter? See, my mind gravitates so heavily towards things I deem consequential and important.

Those things may very well have importance as it relates to a given thing that I want to happen in the world, but how important can it really be when history is more or less an endless loop? I have a desire to impact the world on a grand scale, but any grand action I could achieve would be one hundred percent reliant on the people that choose to be a part of it.

If anything good happens from what I'm doing, it will be done through the hands of others, not my own, except in the cases where I choose to practice what I preach. Maybe instead of trying to find ourselves, we should just focus on making things better in the world around us in whatever way we're best able to do it.

For some dumb reason, the phrase from this cartoon movie called Lilo & Stitch comes to my mind. I love the part where Stitch describes their family, and I think he says, "It's little and broken, but still good." We may be just little people that happen to be a little bit broken, but that doesn't mean that we don't have a lot to offer.

When I think of how small we really are in the world and how insignificant compared to all of humanity across time, I can't help but think that the things that really matter are how we live our day-to-day lives. I love the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings. They are arguably the least significant of all the races in that story, but there is a kind of nobility to them.

And instead of trying to force the world to recognize their contributions to it, they seem to fit effortlessly into it. You might say that the hobbits of The Shire were small-minded and simple, but the beauty of them is their willingness to be content with the world around them. They spend their time helping things grow and fussing over the silverware, but there's beauty in that.

Epic adventures will always make for a more exciting story, but simple living will always be a happier and more content dance to be a part of. Now, I'm clearly still the guy who wants his life to be a story worth telling, but I think that's why I needed to write about this in the first place. I let myself get caught up trying to find ways to feel important when at the end of the day, good things are accomplished mostly by doing small things.

The closest description of paradise I've ever read about was the little world the hobbits enjoyed in The Shire. In the words of Tolkien, "They love peace and quiet and good tilled earth." And at the end of the day, that sounds like as good of a place for anyone to find themselves. This is Skipping Stones - “Finding Yourself.”

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