As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Jeff Goins wrote a book. It’s called Wrecked and it’s good. Today he posts for us here with a reminder that chasing the pain could end up getting us closer to what we truly seek.
Life for us is too comfortable, too predictable. When things get easy, we get bored. So we chase addictions and comforts and stuff to revive our sullen hearts.
We search and strive for more and ultimately end up disappointed, because we’re searching in all the wrong places.
So how do we find the fullness of life and all it has to offer? How do we really live and not merely exist? We’ve got to get out of the bubble. We have to have our world turned upside-down.
I don’t know about you, but that’s the last thing I want but first thing I need.
The biggest and most freeing disappointment of life is realizing our stories are not our own. That our time on earth is about more than just us.
This is scary, because it’s an invitation to live into a larger narrative, which inevitably means risk and adventure. It means taking chances and losing it all. It means the possibility of pain.
But it also means there’s more to the universe than what we see. Which was what we were wondering all along… wasn’t it?
The solution to this slumber we find ourselves in is to step out. To move into the hard things of life, the epicenter of growth and just be.
“Go where the pain is.” That’s what I told my sister in college who was searching for a major and the meaning of life.
A few years ago, I discovered this is where the fullness of life is found. In discomfort and tragedy. In bucking the status quo and finding our deepest satisfaction in the places where it hurts the most. We don’t do this for the sake of suffering, of course, but for the empathy and love found there.
At first, I thought it was just me who was weird, who wanted to hang out with broken people and hear their stories, who found the more in the lessening of self. I felt like a misfit, stuck in a world that didn’t seem to support a peculiar brand of restlessness.
But then, I found I was not alone in my dissatisfaction.
This tension between what is and what should be, between our desire for more and addiction to what is comfortable, is where we live our lives. And the hard truth is this is what it is.
Perhaps the hardest piece of advice to follow is this: join the club. Embrace the weirdness of being human. And finally submit to the call to be uncomfortable. It’s where we finally, paradoxically, find rest.
To read more of Jeff’s writing, visit his blog – Goins Writer. To find out more about his book, visit Wrecked The Book. Do you agree with Jeff that you can find your deepest satisfaction in the places where it hurts the most?
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