For a great deal of time, I wandered.
Lost. Struggling with realities I didn’t want to accept. Facing challenges I wasn’t ever sure where the point in all of it was. There was a lot of questioning. Questioning as to what I was supposed to be doing with myself. Questioning as to why I had been through what I had been through. Everything had a giant question mark around it.
Everything was unsure.
I have spent a majority of my time on this planet completely and utterly lost.
As certain as I am about a few things, everything else has been left to interpretation. The chaos of what has been the first chunk of my life has not all been for nothing. I have gone through some things that have made me grow up a little too fast and this next piece feels like I am relearning how to bring out the kid in me again.
The truth is, over the past few months there’s been this huge existential battle in me between the voice I can hear inside guiding me to the water and the horse in me that refuses to drink it.
I have procrastinated. I have put off. I have succumbed to inaction. I have prevented myself from taking steps forward that I know will create a reality that I have seen in my mind time and time again.
The pivotal formula of thoughts becoming words becoming things has been there forever…and yet I didn’t want to put all of the energy behind what I knew it would take for one reason or another.
I have been licking my wounds for a good deal of time.
Wounds that have been there since the beginning but I never had any frame or context for. I have been nursing those because for the first time in my life I had someone actually describe them to me and give me the ability to see them for myself.
They do not make me a broken man.
However, they are there. But what also struck me is that there is a much greater part of my being that is unwoundable. A part that no matter how bad it gets at time, is unable to be struck or damaged.
I think we all go through incredibly hard things in life, but the only difference between those who stay stuck in the same place and those who keep moving forward is faith. Really, I’m starting to believe that’s all it really comes down to. Faith will help you continue to move forward no matter how dark it gets. Faith is the voice inside that says, “I know you can’t see, but you will.”
I don’t really think there’s anything brilliant or “genius” about what I am doing. But I do know that the one thing that I really have on lockdown is faith and persistence. The patience part has come in this year and I am still learning those lessons, but I know without a shadow of a doubt in my heart that I am able to keep on going no matter how bad it gets.
That’s why this has lasted for 5 years.
That’s why this will last for another 70+ years (hopefully 95+)
There’s a sense of brilliance in the great devotions of life. The ability to put yourself up to a task that is far greater than who you are right now and really give it your best go no matter what happens. For the past few months, I have been deciding what that new devotion will be.
What’s coming next?
What are you going to create?
Where are you going to go?
These are questions that have been looming for quite some time and they have literally taken all of my focus to the point where I’ve not been able to do some of the things I truly love.
I remember a long time ago I received a piece of advice that “great writers know when not to write.”
That always stuck with me because I knew that there would be times where I could create something, but I probably shouldn’t. Not because of laziness, but because there was a feeling that I needed to let things sit for a while. I needed to let things sink in and take root.
This truly has been a lesson lately of being patient with myself…
And knowing that the answers will come when they are meant to.
I know in my heart that what I’m about to do is the right thing. I know that I can follow it and fall in love with it. I know that love is already there.
It’s time to take bigger steps in the direction I know I can and move forward in doing something that will change the rest of my life.
Faith.
Persistence.
Action.
All that ever seems to matter.
Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project