For ages, I have been looking for The Place. The right place, the perfect place. The one with capital letters, that I belong to. That will help solve all my problems, or that will be the most beautiful one yet. Whenever I pass an interesting place, I wonder „is this the one?“. If not, I continue. As if something that doesn’t get the The Place-label is not worth my attention or presence.
This is a bit ridiculous actually.
Because, have I found The Place yet? No. Of course not.
Have I possibly missed a ton of interesting opportunities because of just continuing? Yes, definitely.
Have I been disappointed when seemingly perfect places turned out to be just a place? Oh yes.
So why do I keep grasping for spots that are an illusion of a perfect, constantly stable life?
It would be a lot better and less disappointing to see new places as what they are. An opportunity, a step on the road, a new experience, a learning possibility.
Honestly, I don’t want to stand still in one place. And I won’t either. I will most likely be travelling from place to place throughout the next years. So it is high time to accept that!
After all, The Place is just a place, and a place can be The Place – for a while! Perhaps every place we are in, have been in and will be in in the future are The Places. Where we are right now is where we are supposed to be.
Maybe we should stop looking at situations as a wrong decision, but start seeing them as a necessary diversion to get to something even more positive. That way the perceived wrong turn will show its important benefits!
I could say „How stupid was I to move into the middle of a village and work in a shrimp factory!?“ (and I do say that sometimes). More constructive and truthful, however, is: hadn’t I taken this job and moved to this place, I wouldn’t have come to the realisations I have now, I wouldn’t have met the people who helped me see a new direction, and I possibly wouldn’t have developed the ideas I did.
It is strange to write this. Hadn’t I done this, I would have done something else. Moved forward on a different parallel path, that eventually most likely will lead back to the core of why we are here. In the end, the small decisions we make really don’t matter as much as we think they do. We will always get back on the path again. Through bigger or smaller interruptions.
This thought is scary. The endlessness of possiblities and no right or wrong decision. It feels both liberating and heavy at the same time.
When I think about this, a common next thought is: I don’t matter. What I do doesn’t matter. And while that is true on one scale (my small decisions and paths I take don’t matter), it is also completely wrong. I could be in Nepal, Zimbabwe or China now: it doesn’t matter. What matters is the core of why I am doing it and what I can achieve through this – both for myself and others. The core is what matters. And as long as we stay true to that, we can’t make a wrong decision.
But then again, maybe neither of this matters either. Maybe nothing has a meaning and is just as plain and pointless.
The difference is what we choose to believe.
I think I would like to believe in meaning, even if that means putting on „pink sunglasses“.
What I have learned: any place is right, small decisions don’t matter eventually (I think I also already said this)
What I’m grateful: taking the pressure of decision making and finding The Place away