April 2026
Every year around this time I have my scheduled yearly crisis. On the outside, I look solid. But I’m wrestling with some larger stuff internally. I mean I’m always doing that.
This version though is different.
I’m asking myself the impossible question: “What do I believe?”
Not too long ago, I was happily (though still reluctantly) being told what I believed. I followed a set of rules (at least on the outside). I thought that even if I didn’t have it figured out that this way of living was okay.
(What I had “conveniently” forgotten was that I had just gone through something similar a few years before. The ending was the same – that it didn’t work. Still I longed so much for stability and consistency. I wanted those things so much that I ignored all I knew was blatantly wrong. AND I thought I could make my own version. Bend the rules to go my way you know. Like picking and choosing from a buffet. That didn’t work.)
I think I’ve ranted before about an exercise from Danielle LaPorte “What I trust.” I want to like it and do it. But I can’t. Because the answer is…
Nothing.
So then multiply that question: what do I believe?
Oh gosh, is that the answer, nothing? Then where does that leave me for stability and consistency? Drowning in quicksand?
I do believe that I don’t know anything. I believe that I’m making my best guesses on things at any given time. I believe that what I’ve lived through and my experience matters. It is more important than what any other source tells me. I believe that (though I forget it all. the. time.)
The previous beliefs gave me an easy out. It was “easy” to live them out. I didn’t have to think about it or wrestle with it. I just followed the rules. I patterned and regulated my days accordingly.
Now what?
How do I decide to pattern my days? What do I base my life on when I’ll be the only one (that I know of) likely doing so based on my personal beliefs? (Whatever those personal beliefs are – if I could figure them out.)
And what does all this say about me and about what I think of being part of the community and the world at large?
I do believe there is more than we understand or even want to know in this world and those outside of this known world.
We are all a big experiment and have no idea what we are doing (gestures wildly to the world.)
So how do I live my life around that in this finite-human-incomprehensible world?
It (for some reason) is very important to me to live my beliefs. But what does that look like without the crutch of religion and social expectation? When I don’t even know what my beliefs even are?
With great freedom comes great responsibility… So I still borrow and use some of the structure that is visible and understandable as I’m figuring out how to jump off into my own thing. I’m not ready for all the responsibility when all I’m trying to do is figure out where to put the little free time and money I have for me and for the world.
Still you can’t go backward (oh how I’ve tried.) Many times I want to just go back to the old way, pretend I don’t know what I know. (In some ways that’s what I’m trying to do right now. And it’s not working. Hence this yearly crisis.)
I’m tired and aware that I am left of clueless. I have a tendency to cut out and jump ship while also throwing the baby out with the bathwater. So keeping some might keep me from going round and round. In other cases it might actually be keeping me from moving forward.
I have to live it, to know that it is my belief. Not just to validate it. It is more important to me to ensure how I live is the most accurate description and explanation of me. (It’s how we learn about people whether it is correct or not.)
I have to make the decision every day – what to eliminate and what to add that feels more like myself. How to live it and how to actualize the belief. Even if no one else understands or sees it – that’s the hardest part of the spiral.
There are many times I’m gleefully contrary but then there are times I just want to get along so I can rest and just be. I tell myself I could stop. But I can’t. It’s too important.
So I keep going.