The Beginning of the Journey – The Voice Inside Me

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I believe that we all have a voice inside us which speaks of personal growth, self acknowledgement and inner self discovery. We just have to hear closely to actually listen to what it has to say. The daily life of most people living in western part of the world is so fast paced and demanding that we rarely have time to do so. However, this voice is so persistent that it never stops. And when the time comes that we actually hear it, it is our own decision if we will embark on this journey or not. We may then begin but somewhere along the way lose our path, forget our goal and abandon. But the voice will still be there and remind us that at some point, the point when we will be ready to hear it again, we must get back on track. This is what has happened to me the last few years. 

I remember having a need for self discovery since my first adult years. I was always very fond of reading but around 18 I started reading more philosophical books, books that gave me something to think and left me wanting to deepen my knowledge by reading more, searching more. Most of my friends around the age of 18-19 were mainly focused on enjoying the freedom they gained recently when entering adulthood. I did too, but in a moderate way. There were times that I preferred sitting with myself, reading a good book, practicing concentration exercises or just spending some time searching myself inside me. By 20 I was a part of a big (for my country’s standards) website that was dedicated to self growth through dozens of different ways and tools, covering issues like meditation, visualization, yoga, different religions and legends etc. and I was writing articles for them. A very pleasant and rewarding experience. Then life got on the way, I was staying in different areas every six months due to my work, I had no stable environment, no stable working hours, no stability in my life in general and put everything aside. I focused on my work and made great plans on how I would get a dream-job on a managerial position in a great multinational company, dreamt of how self content I would be when I have achieved this and I believed that once I did, all the other parts of my life would magically click in the right place, all problems would be instantly solved and I would be HAPPY. Well I did accomplish what I dreamt of. Only when I finally did it, after endless working hours and very few sleeping ones, after sacrificing my social life and my private self-time, I was far from being happy. I was alone, confused, stressed like never before and felt completely empty. I was lost.

That’s when I stepped back a little and managed to hear that dear little voice again: I got it all wrong. I got carried away from the western kind of living and forgot that I had a different road to take. Well, what is done is done and I believe we always get important lessons from everything we do in our lives, I surely got mine. So, I made a commitment to myself. I will go on to my road of self discovery, I need to, I feel it burning inside me. There will be bumps and obstacles in the way, I will take wrong turns, I will encounter sirens that will try to lure me off the path I have chosen and some of them will. I will stumble and I will fall. It is all part of the journey and I will take it as it is, but I will keep going keeping an open mind and an open heart. Always listening to the voice inside me.