If You Constantly Think There Must Be Something More to Life…Maybe There Is

It’s the great tension. Comfort versus adventure. We crave both. Comfort usually wins, but it doesn’t like to share, so we let it lull us to sleep. Before we know it we’ve organized our entire life around that small god, making every decision based on the perception of stability. We lay our dreams on the altar, pretending that someday we can retrieve them, or that Comfort will give them back to us when we are old and gray.

In the last fifteen months, two of my friends died, both in their mid-30s. The future will wait for some of us, but not all.

I know it might sound irresponsible, or breathtaking, or maddeningly idealistic, but just consider it for one moment. Forget what you should do, what you feel pressured to do, what you’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on a degree to do. What if you were designed for more than entering data into a spreadsheet? Or constantly trying to crest the waves of email that threaten to drown you every day? What if your mind-numbing commute is actually that…numbing your brain to the things you would love to do?

Dream big. And I don’t mean big financially. Dream bigger than that. What if your personality, your skill set, your strengths and passions and loves, make you the perfect fit to serve refugee communities spilling into Lebanon from Syria? Or to adopt multiple children? What if your ability to think on your feet would make you one of the most successful fighters against human trafficking the world has ever seen? What if your ability to form relationships in hostile environments lines you up perfectly to serve in the more difficult places of the earth, places where others are currently trying and failing?

Maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe you have close friends who desperately need you once a week, and you simply need to make time for them. Maybe you’re an organizer and can help the local food pantry go to the next level. Maybe you have one or two or three or more littles in your house who need forming. Imagine a world where children are protected and not exploited, nurtured and not abused. You can be part of that. You can participate in that.

Maybe you have a book you need to write.

Maybe you need to paint a picture.

I’m not saying that what you’re doing now isn’t important. I’m not saying a paycheck isn’t worth anything. But if you live your life with that constant nagging in the back of your mind that there must be something more, well, maybe there is.