At various points, life appears to have clarity. We find a goal or a mind state to fixate on, and we become consumed.

But that clarity can leave just as quickly as it arrives.

I used to think I was alone in this experience. Now I’m convinced that isn’t the case.

On paper, my life looks perfect. I couldn’t dream of a better scenario than I’m in right now, and that has almost always been the case.

But the quest for direction continues.

It just doesn’t seem right. When there are people struggling to find food, how can someone possibly be upset by a rude comment or a minor inconvenience?

When we look outward, it’s so easy to assume that everyone else has figured it out. We look at anyone who’s had some degree of success and we assume that they don’t face the same type of doubt and wandering that we do.

But I don’t think that’s true.

War veterans talk about the clarity they experienced when they were in combat. About how, when they were facing the most serious threats of their lives, they felt a sense of clarity and purpose that they’ll likely never see in the civilian world.

I can imagine how this could be true. When all of life’s luxuries are stripped away and survival becomes the only meaningful objective, it makes sense that life’s trivial worries would disappear. We don’t have the privledge of worrying about what we’re wearing, how the food that we’re eating tastes, or what we’re doing on the weekend.

But in everyday life, these distractions are very really.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve personally seen is that, so far, as life has progressed and various goals of been met, the level of ambiguity has grown exponentially.

It used to be clear. My goals were to pass the test, finish the semester, win the game, etc. Now, that’s all gone.

Even if I manufacture these types of simple goals now, the much heavier underlying questions remain.

Sure I can say that I want to finish renovating a basement, but where does it fall on the list of priorities? Should I even be renovating it in the first place? What if it was better to rent? Am I living in the right place? How long will I be here?

And almost every situation is like this. Each decision we have to make is so much more than what’s seen on the surface. These layers of complexity can be completely overwhelming.

So with that, I recently came across a new song by Mike Posner that captures this feeling of uncertainty surprisingly well. He writes “I worked the last ten years. I’m a multimillionaire. I’m thirty years old, it’s supposed to all be good.”

Yet through the pain in his voice and the lyrics throughout the rest of the song, it’s very clear that it is not “all good.”

His struggle partly comes from some close deaths that he’s had to deal with, which I can’t necessarily relate to, but the impact seems to be the same. The seemingly care-free life of someone who appears to have everything under control is all but care-free.

When we think that we’re alone in our struggles, it can feel overwhelming. But as soon as we accept that we’re on this same journey with everyone around us, we can view this search for direction as one of the most interesting and meaningful parts of the human experience.

It isn’t a burden. It’s a blessing.

-Brandon