What Have You Got to Show for Yourself?

I wrote the following in July of 2016 and it still rings true today in March of 2024. 

The ever-present questions: What do you do? What do you want to do with your life? What have you got to show for yourself? Where are we going? Is this going anywhere? Why do we ask these questions? Why do we have to be something? Can’t we just be? Where do we have to go? Isn’t the point of life just living? Why do we have a need for some major goal, some end point, or some massive achievement? Why can’t we just go through day-to-day living with joy and let that be enough? Why can’t a daily run be enough without a race? Why can’t preparing a meal from whole fresh ingredients be enough without a lime, fig, Viognier reduction with tarragon kohlrabi coulis and roasted pistachios? Why can’t a happy, healthy woman be enough without a child and/or a career and a “successful” husband? 

I fret constantly over what I have or haven’t achieved in life; the fact that I have nothing concrete to show for my 57 (now 64) years of scrambling. But what is really concrete about a house that can burn down or tumble down in an earthquake? What is good about being tied to a house that owns you? What is solid about a career that takes up more than half your waking life unless that career is also your passion, and how many people truly have that? I’ve always struggled with a need to strive for something but often have to scramble to find a target to shoot for. Sometimes my target is random, grabbed out of a hat just to have something out there. 

If I’m honest with myself, here is how I really want it to go. I awake, slightly predawn in my tiny, cozy apartment, meditate before leaving bed. Then I drink my green drink or coffee while a read a chapter in my latest library book. Then I do a little dynamic stretching before going for a sunrise run on trails around my home. As the sun climbs I return home for a quick shower, a protein smoothie and a cup of green tea before shooting a few early morning photos of the surrounding scenery and a particularly stunning dewy spider web sparkling in the sun. Then I sit down to my computer to write my daily blog, edit and submit photos for stock sites and develop query letters for the book I have planned but don’t care if I ever really finish. 

In the afternoon I go for a swim or a bike ride or another run or a hike then I get together with a friend or a group of friends, and we take our time fixing a healthy, simple meal together, maybe sip some wine, or fresh squeezed lemonade. And we talk about our day, what we’re grateful for, our families, the world, and life. Maybe some instruments come out and we sing a couple songs. 

Simple. Slow. Stress free…

But wait! That Baker Lake 50k was so fun. Maybe I should do that again. And I still want to tour Central Asia. And a van tour of National Parks would be fun. And I still haven’t learned Spanish or German. And I DO have a book in me that needs to be written! 

What's a girl to do, but continue to strive, to seek the new, to be an adventurer, to keep on learning? I guess now I understand why my favorite song on the piano, when taking lessons as a kid, was a piece called Perpetual Motion.