Sometimes people will utter simple words that have the power to change your life, or at least change your perspective, and they mean it as nothing more than a passing comment. This is a cool thing. Pay attention when this happens.
So, here's my related story: I received some very wise advice and shockingly accurate insight from a completely unexpected source recently, and it sparked a long-winded yet much needed self-analysis.
"You need someone who's all in." Those six words came from an old friend who I see maybe once or twice a year. But she hit the nail right on its stubborn little head and I don't even think she realized what she had done. I'm so glad she did. I honestly couldn't have said it better myself.
Sometimes people on the outside know what you truly need deep down better than you know in your own consciousness. Sometimes we're blind to what it is we're missing or just neglecting to notice because, simply, we're too close to the problem to actually be able to see it clearly, if at all. Sometimes these people have a better perspective since their viewpoint isn't so obstructed by their own emotions. Sometimes we need these people to tell us exactly what it is we really need. Because we often confuse what we want and what we need and, more often than not, what we want isn't really what we need.
I've been getting asked what I want more often than normal lately. And because these questions are typically targeting the relationship sphere of wants, usually my answer amounts to little more than "I don't know." However, when I'm being painfully honest, my answer to this question comes out as some variation of "Nothing. I just want to be left alone." Which, due to current events in my sometimes much-too-eventful life, couldn't be more true.
"What do you want?"
It's a question that almost always throws me for a loop. If you're asking what I want in my career, I can give you an answer without hardly blinking an eye. I can tell you with ease where I want to travel and when and why. I can tell you with absolute certainty whether I want paper or plastic, cream in my coffee, or fries with that. Those things are simple. The yeses and noes and black and white are easy for me. The inconsequential ones anyway.
"Are you happy?" "Have you moved on?" "Do you still love him?" for example... Those ones aren't nearly as black and white to answer. That's my big problem. All those relationship/romantic type questions leave me with little more to offer than a blank, blinking stare, a shake of the head, and shrug of the shoulders accompanied by an exasperated sigh. I can't answer those. I just can't. I don't think there's a real answer to give.
Honestly, I think the question everyone should really be asking me (and really anyone else for that matter) is "What do you need?" My answers to this question might be the same: "I just need to be left alone." Maybe that's how you really know that something is what you genuinely want. Maybe if we got into the habit of saying to ourselves "I know this is what I think I want, but is it really what I need?" we would all be a whole lot better off evaluating our choices on that basis.
It can often be a great struggle to figure out what we want and an even greater struggle to decide whether or not that specific want is good for us. We can't know until we've already chosen and come out at the end to face the result. And that's what makes these questions so difficult to answer. They're so incredibly uncertain and that makes them so very frightening.
Maybe it's because our bad decisions, as we come to view them after the fact, leave us scarred and afraid. We learn to fear making any decision or taking any action at all because there's a chance that it might turn out to be just another "mistake." But, at the risk of sounding unbearably cliché, to be afraid to make a mistake is to be afraid to actually live. We have to go out on a limb sometimes. We have to take that leap and allow ourselves to fall. Every experience is meant to foster growth. I honestly believe that. And if we never fall flat on our face and have the opportunity to will ourselves to get back up, brush off the dirt, and keep trudging along, we never really grow. We stay exactly the same. And who wants that?
So, what do I want? The truth is, I want to fall head over heels in love with my best friend. I want to have that inseverable kind of bond with someone I can see myself spending the rest of my life with. I want that closeness. I want to find that person that makes my soul sing. I want that great love. I want someone who is all in.
Someday. Just not today. Right now, I just want to be on my own. I'm still brushing off the debris from my last dramatic tumble. I think I can wait a little while before I allow my face to metaphorically become acquainted with the ground in such a traumatic manner again. What I need is to take this time to run free and feel and see and fully experience the world around me and its abundance of opportunities through my own eyes on my own time. I really do just want to be left alone. And, until God shows me differently, it really is what I need.
Not all advice is good advice. But when it is, hopefully you'll have the sense to see it. And when you do, take it and run with it.
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