Destination: Nowhere!

Let me start by stating clearly where I intend to go with this article: Nowhere! Yes, exactly, nowhere! So why should I even bother to write something leading nowhere? Well, if I could answer this question, I imagine I wouldn’t need to write about this in the first place. I believe that there is something that needs to be explored and found out about in the middle of this nowhere thing. And this is, after all, the goal for these next lines.

Let’s be clear about this, I’m not trying to go into any kind of nihilist consideration about the emptiness of human existence and the absence of meaning on trying to get to any goal, because whatever it is, it’s ultimately useless and unnecessary. On the contrary (although I hope not in opposition), I intend to show clearly how much this simple assumption of going nowhere, can be of great use and add meaning and value to our lives. And this is exactly the point. For some time now, I’ve been searching and learning in different areas and sets trying to find something that can expand the value and meaning of what I am doing in my life, both personally and professionally. It’s not a matter of going through a middle age crisis (although I could be the perfect candidate for it), but merely understanding that wherever we are, we can always try to achieve higher standards and enhance our lives and our visions of it, expand. Find new and more profound ways to fill the void or that uncomfortable feeling that something is missing. Growing up, some might call it.

Through all this pursuit of growth and where is it that I can find something that boosts mine, I’ve been stumbling on this most crazy and unbelievable stuff that I can’t even define — we all have for sure, so I’m not annoying you with this — but also I’ve been finding a lot of great advices and strategies for improving ourselves and deal better with life challenges. One of the major lines of reasoning on this self-work that we find nowadays is the one of the “push yourself”, “find your goals”, “know where you want to go and do whatever it takes to get there”, “face you fears”, “build the energy to overcome your limiting thoughts”, “get there, get there”, “change your mindset and be that new person you want to be”, “build the life you want”, “don’t get behind, this is how you get there, strive”, “learn the best way to do it!” “This is it, apply it and you’ll understand”. “Achieve!! Achieve!!”

Even at my work (I’m a clinical psychologist by the way), I found myself at times using this approach with my clients. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condemning it, there have been great results coming from this kind of life transforming strategies, no doubts here. It’s just that at a certain point I started to feel overwhelmed by all of this “true” and “right” knowledge, so many people telling you the recipe for success, for happiness, for exceling in your life (most of them respected and respectfully high standard professionals), pushing you to do what’s best to go somewhere. It’s the food, you have to change the way you eat; it’s exercise, or both, but you have to be the best eating and exercising. It’s also a spiritual practice, where you have to find bliss, love and utter peace, and find your true self… but get there quickly cause now it’s the time!… Ok, I think you already get the point! Everyone has something very fundamental to teach that will help you become happy, the person you want to be and have the life you dream. I understand, it has true in it (some of them), and we all have to make ends meet, but damn, like this I’ll go through all my life learning how to live, and not truly living — wow how pretentious and meaningless can this be? Is this really the purpose of being here?

All this got me thinking: so, do we really have to be always running around to go somewhere? To get better at something? On an endless cycle of planning, doing and achieving, and planning and getting somewhere? Yes, it serves us properly sometimes and with somethings, but I believe it is not everything there is. And it’s overwhelming, consuming and eventually miserable if we don’t break it and take the time to enjoy life and ourselves. Allow us to just flow with the movement that is naturally present in every moment and remain content in it. This, my friends, is exactly going nowhere! Is staying grounded in you, in your daily ventures, your work, your hobby, your family, your loved ones. Find the deepness of yourself and remain present in it, renewing, exploring, finding. For much help we may have, there are no answers outside, only inside of us. And if we need to go somewhere, we go, but if we keep going, we don’t get to find the integrity of true growth, of discovering ourselves, our own answers, peace and fulfilment. That comes with the ability to stay in us, the ability of going nowhere, of doing the things that have to be done without having necessarily to gain or lose something with it, of adding or losing value, of getting somewhere with it. It’s the integrity of the moment in which we allow ourselves to enjoy every aspect of it, absorb ourselves in and go through it truly present, very much aware. We don’t have to worry anymore if we’re facing our demons, or overcoming the barriers, we are just nowhere, doing, connecting, living, without preconceptions of what it should or should not be; no questions asked, no expectations to achieve, just this deep and tender connection to the moment. Remaining in ourselves like this, not only we face what is there to face, but we become free from all the conceptions of what we should be dealing and achieving and overcoming. We deal with things as they are, enjoy and learn with them, overcoming what there is to overcome — if there´s truly something needing to — getting rid of all the extras and detaching from imposed or conditioned ideas that aren’t really ours. With this comes freedom, the real and blissful one.

It is not a matter of choosing no to grow or not to be better every day, exceling in what you deliver to the world, this is a very important manifestation of our true nature, too. It’s more a matter of seeing that not everything has to be reduced to that, a matter of understanding that we can relax, free ourselves and find the humorous side of life that makes us enjoy it, lower the guards, and taste things as they come to us. Because is by connecting to us and to life as it is that we can see everything clearly, gathering the knowledge to move harmoniously with life’s movement, becoming more wholesome and open. We can make ourselves the question of what we are striving for: efficiency or integrity? Achievement or fulfilment? And then making the corresponding choice, knowing by now that none of them is an isolated path.

Finally is a matter of realizing we are nowhere, and even when we think we’re going somewhere, in fact we have nowhere to go. If this isn’t enough to make us burst out in laughter at least should make us enjoy life more deeply and freely.