Hello Dear Friend,
Welcome to the Sunday edition of the Things I Wish I Knew Earlier (TIWIKE) Newsletter!
Here are three ideas on how to find your place in the world for you to ponder in the coming week.
TIWIKE #1: You belong where you are most needed
In January of 2017, I traveled to Nicaragua with a backpack, enough cash for a year, and a dream of becoming a best-selling author.
At that time, I had never been there, I didn’t know anyone there, and my Spanish was completely inadequate. But I wanted true freedom and a chance to succeed or fail on my own terms. Two weeks in, I was consumed with anxiety and weighted down with depression.
I didn’t know what to do with myself.
I didn’t know when to wake up, when to go to sleep, where to eat, or how to spend my days.
If I wanted to, I could wake up at noon, make some breakfast, and sit in the rocking chair in the entrance to my hostel to rock all day. No one would ask me what I was doing. No one would push me to go do something valuable. I paid for a month of lodging, and my host didn’t care what I did or where I went.
Coming into the trip, this is exactly what I wanted.
This was my dream, total freedom!
Wherever I went and whatever I did, no one cared. Nothing about my presence there made any difference whatsoever. No one there needed me. This taught me a lesson that stuck with me ever since.
You belong where you are most needed.
TIWIKE #2: When you don’t know what to do, go about doing good
What do you do when haven’t received your calling?
You go about doing good where it can be done until your calling is revealed. Let’s strip away all the religious connotations of the Passion Story, the story of Jesus of Nazareth becoming Jesus Christ, to figure this out.
Here is the story in its most basic form:
From the beginning of the story, Jesus “went about doing good.” (Acts 10:38) Everywhere he traveled, he looked for people he could help, then he…helped them. This was his modus operandi until he received his calling from God. His calling was to carry a cross to the top of Golgotha to be wrongly crucified for sins he never committed, where he poured out his lifeblood on behalf of all humanity.
If you live rightly, this is the simple structure for finding your place in the world.
In the beginning of your journey, you don’t yet know who needs you most or how you can uniquely help them.
The only option at this stage is to go about doing good where you can. You don’t understand the world well enough to know who you are most suited to serve. And you don’t understand yourself well enough to know how you can uniquely serve them.
Without either of these essential pieces of information, all you can do to find your place in the world is to start where you are by doing good for whomever you can in whatever manner you can. This will take you from being lost where you are to belonging where you are, even if that place is temporary. And this is the only available path that will reliably deliver you to your calling.
When you don’t know what to do, go about doing good.
TIWIKE #3: Your place in the world is where you can do the most good for others
Christ poured out his life’s energy on behalf of all mankind.
As strange as it seems on the surface, this is precisely what you are called to do as well. Who are you, little ole you, to do something so grandiose? This is part of what makes the Passion Story perfect in it’s structure. Jesus represents how the lowest among us can rise to become the greatest through intentional service of others.
Christ was born to dirt poor parents in an out-of-the-way place, yet he ascended to Godhood, at least metaphorically (for you non-religious types).
You may wonder how you are supposed to pour out your blood for all mankind.
Consider the imagery. Christ literally poured out his life’s energy by spilling his blood on a cross. Hopefully, you won’t be called to do the same. But don’t we all pour out our life’s energy a little bit at a time every single day?
What if the cross represented the precise location in the world where you can uniquely impact the most number of lives in the most drastic possible way?
After all, X does mark the spot.
It’s no accident Christ was murdered on an X. And whether you are a believer or not, the Passion Story serves as the perfect scaffolding for a life well-lived, filled with purpose, meaning and direction. In the beginning, just go about doing good where you can.
Give your best effort at your job, even if you know it isn’t what you’re here to do long-term.
Treat your family and friends as well as you can, even if you know you are on your way to building new relationships.
Continue along this path until it becomes obvious to you who you are most well-suited to serve and in what capacities. Then your job is to travel to wherever they are and develop those capacities. When you arrive, you will earn the right to pour out your life energy on behalf of all humanity.
If this sounds overly lofty, consider the fact that we don’t fully understand how the smallest actions affect the future.
We know everything is intimately connected in some strange manner.
As far as we know, it may prove to be true that you doing the unique work you are particularly suited to do on behalf of the people you are uniquely suited to serve will save all of humanity. There is only one way to find out. The goal is to find your cross and pour out your life’s energy there.
The cross symbolizes your place in the world.
Your place in the world is where you can do the most good for others.