A common question adults ask children is,

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

But have you ever asked an adult that question and had to watch them struggle to find an answer? Had to knit your eyebrows when you realized they dodged the question entirely. I’ve never had a real job, but what I’ve always had is a pretty intense idea of what makes me feel really fucking good doing it! I know I can do a couple of things day in and day out and never really lose energy because doing those things make me high with joy! But I’m starting to get the feeling that this is not a common experience.

I’ve come to an age where, weirdly, people I have known since forever, are clearly not doing what I imagined they would do for a living. And that wouldn’t feel so sad and disappointing except that they do not seem happy doing what they are doing. They don’t seem to feel fulfilled. They aren’t feeling the passion! But they have families and responsibilities and need to fund all that with jobs that pay real money.

I know, growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We were fed a lie that we could be whatever we wanted to be but now that we have grown up, we’re expected to put away childish things and do what we must to survive. Society places a high price on basic survival.

But apparently growing up doesn’t cost us just our passions and desires, it also seems to cost us our health. High-stress levels lead to all sorts of physical and mental ailments, and the worst thing is that these people, my friends, whose eyes used to shine as bright as mine in our youth, who had a natural love of life that all children naturally carry, well, they’ve lost that! It’s like they’ve died inside. They can’t tell me what they would do if they could do anything they wanted and money wasn’t an issue because they are no longer connected to that part of themselves that knows and lives in joy.

I imagine that these poor souls run around making decisions trying to live lives someone told them they were supposed to live, lives they believe they actually want, digging themselves into ruts going deeper and deeper until they feel they can’t get out of this horrible rat race. And now, they will listen to any snake oil salesman who purports to have the answer to all their problems all in an effort to finally achieve that ever elusive and unknowable sense of joy and peace, if only…!!!

But they have no idea what path will ultimately lead them there! They have been so busy leading lives that are not theirs, they feel numb and disconnected from themselves. All they want to do, all they can think of to do, is go on vacation and do nothing. Retire, so they can finally do nothing. Which of course nobody does. Because to do nothing, is to be alone with yourself, and apparently, the pandemic taught us that we don’t like ourselves all that much. Honestly, I wonder if resting and doing nothing is exactly what is needed.

Maybe we are afraid of being alone because who we think we are is not actually who we truly are. We’re just pretending and fear the vulnerability of the true experience of our authentic, sovereign, and empowered, selves.

Most of us don’t even know what these words mean on a personal individual level. We’ve been piling on all these labels and stories we tell ourselves and others about who we “really” are but it’s mostly not true. These are just masks we wear. Beautiful masks designed to give us the love, acceptance, power, resources, etc that make us feel joy or peace or whatever. These masks offer us protection because we fear being truly vulnerable and real. We fear being rejected. It feels like a matter of life or death, but the ironic question is, are we really living if we are not really being authentic?