The Maze of Reasoning

How often do you ask yourself why you do the things that you do?

For a long time, I focussed my attention on why others did what they did, why things were the way that they were, I asked the question of ‘why’ all the time. But this question was never directed inwards.

As a result of this, most of what I did was because I simply thought I had to. I had to go to University. I had to get a job. I had to make friends. Navigating through all of this, on the basis of ‘have to’, meant I was operating on a foundation of stress and obligation. Its amusing to look back on the version of myself that was confused about why I felt like I couldn’t handle anything.

Which brings me to the dire importance of self-reasoning. How far down the path of reason can you get before you hit a dead end? Can you reach something that is meaningful to you? That you really care about, not something that you were told to care about.

So here is a little example of what I mean by a path of reasoning:

Why do I a job? Why do I go to work everyday?

• Because I need money

Why?

• So I can afford to pay for things. Rent, food, clothes.

Why?

Because I need to be able to live, stay alive.

Why?

…because I don’t want to die?

And that’s where I would meet a dead end. The maze had swallowed me up, each corner a promise of more, of satisfaction, of progress. But I didn’t know the way through, and I got lost in it everyday.

And of course, your reasoning may be very different. Perhaps its a matter of maintaining your independence, in which case your line of reasoning may go further than that, but ask yourself still, why do you want independence? What is it that you really want? What is driving what you do in your life? Does it matter to you, truly?

Because there is something that matters to you, and if you can’t answer what that is now, it means you simply haven’t found it yet – because the world never asks. You have to.

If the foundation of reasoning that your life is built upon is rife with dead ends, then you may well feel lost. Obviously you would.

You may feel confused, directionless, that everything is pointless, that you’re going through the motions, that it doesn’t matter.

Nobody asks you in a job interview what drives you in the deepest parts of yourself. What matters to you, what you really want. They ask how you can be useful to something else. And if that’s all people ever ask, all the world ever asks, then why would you consider yourself anything else?

You cannot rely on what others want to guide your life, to shape it into something that you care about. Only you can do that, internally.

Find a deeper reason. Find an important one.

Why do I have a job? Why do I want to earn money? Why do I want to support myself, to live?

Because it allows me to do what I really care about. Because its a tool, a platform. I don’t care about the job, not really, but I do care about the fact that if I can pay for the things, I can make my little life on this planet, I can have a home, I can eat, I can sleep, then I can also do the things that do matter to me.

It is indeed, a matter of perspective.

You don’t have to care about what you’re doing, the fact of it, but without a deeper reason, you are not acting in honour of yourself and what you want. And maybe that means it feels empty.

Find that reason. Find what you care about. Ask yourself what you want. And in doing the things you need to do, see them as things that allow for whatever that want is. Put it into everything you do. Remind yourself constantly.

You don‘t have to pack it all in, start again, look for something else and find the same disappointment there.

You can find meaning in everything, if you look for it.