SOMETHING MORE

"I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life."
Virginia Woolf

Do you ever get the nagging feeling at the very core of your being which asks, "Is this it?"

Call it the quarter-life crisis, call it the entitled millenials thinking they (we) deserve the world, call it growing up... call it whatever you want, but don't dismiss it.  It is real and, based upon my discussions with friends and the blogs I frequent, it is pervasive in this generation.

I am all too familiar with this feeling.  It is as persistent and distracting as an itch.  It aches like hunger pangs.

And it doesn't go away.  Or it just hasn't yet.  For me at least.

As an "engineer" I have gone about the process of picking this feeling apart piece by piece, attacking it as a scientist would; I created a controlled experiment.

It goes something like this:

Step 1 - identify the "source" of unrest (i.e. I don't like the company I work for)

Step 2 - eliminate source (i.e. quit or get laid off)

Step 3 - realize the feeling hasn't gone away

Step 4 - lather, rinse, repeat

I have left jobs, moved to the "happiest" city in America, started and ended serious relationships, moved and moved again and again, and STILL the feeling persists.

I have not given up hope.  I am still working at it, day by day and bit by bit.  I am currently somewhere between Steps 1 and 2 (for the I-don't-know-how-many-th time) and still feeling optimistic.

I stay sane by finding ways to experience life more fully and in ways that I do enjoy when I have "free" time.  Images like that above give me the energy to keep going.  I'm already counting down to the weekend.  To a few hours with my beautiful niece and big sister turned amazing mom.  To a good meal with new friends and potential new life paths to explore.

If anything about this post resonates with you, don't give up.  There is something more.

We just have to find it.

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