KEY: Fuel = Energy = LifeX
Sooo I just returned from a 13 day solo escapade to the wonderful ancient land of Egypt. To say it was a wild adventure would be an understatement. Seeing the pyramids of Giza has been on my bucket list for many years now, and everything just seemed to align this month for me to check it off the list. Throughout my trip I attempted to document the highlights as much as I could via instagram stories. On one of those particular stories, I posted a prompt inviting people to ask me ANY questions they wanted about Egypt, or about my travels.
There was a surprising amount of similar questions geared towards my “purpose” or my “why” for going to Egypt, and how it aligned with my long term plans and goals in life. Essentially, “Talen, how the hell are you able to just up and go to Egypt, and how is this random trip useful or productive for your life?” It’s a wonderful question that reallyyyyyy got me thinking about WHY I went to Egypt. This post is my response straight from my chaotic thoughts to this blog. Good luck lol.
I will break this down into three main reflections that came to mind. Let’s begin beotchessss!
☀️ REFLECTION 1: I DON’T AGREE WITH YOU
For a lot of people on this big planet, the following equation is embedded in their subconscious mind so deeply that they believe it to be an eternal truth.
Self-Worth = Achievement + Productivity + Social Standing —> Validated By Society = The Ultimate Purpose & Fulfillment = WE MADE IT! DESTINATION COMPLETE!
What a load of poppycock. As a society we have been so programmed to do things based on outcomes that we have become addicted to predictability and certainty. We have become addicted to goals, reasons and justified plans for why we do things; always doing things as a means to an end, but never actually reaching the end. We have come to literally rely upon the approval of others and we have outsourced our sovereignty and happiness, all under the guise of discovering our “purpose”. I think that in life we focus WAY TOO MUCH on purpose. I think we focus WAY TOO MUCH on passion. We become so hypnotized in our quest of “figuring out” our life plan and what our purpose is that we miss out on the journey the entire way.
You see, I don’t agree that purpose is something we discover or find. It’s not even something that we build or create. It’s who we ARE. You don’t have a purpose. You don’t find a purpose. You don’t create a purpose. YOU ARE THE PURPOSE. Your purpose is you. And everything you do in your life, you bring purpose (yourself) into it. In other words, you give it life. You give it energy and purpose. The objective of life is to breathe our own unique breath of life into everything we fashion and do and make it come alive. To leave your mark. To express (Latin ex- ‘out’ + pressare ‘to press out’) your authentic soul. To LITERALLY put your Soul out there. To amplify, refine and define your unique gifts and strengths. The meaning of life is to create more life. It’s a cycle. Eternal expanse. This is the WHY. As to how much life/energy/purpose you put into what you do? That’s totally up to you.
I really don’t think it matters what we do in life, how we make a living, where we live, etc. I honestly don’t think it matters what color you dye your hair, what religion you affiliate with, or how many times you won the “Top Salesman of the Month” award. I just don’t think those things in and of themselves matter. At the same time, all of those things deeply matter. They contribute to who you are as a human being, and who you are determines and effects how you show up. But here’s the caveat: you get to choose and determine what makes up who you are, and define who you become. So choose wisely amigo.
Since you ARE the purpose, your sole responsibility is to show up as the highest and best version of yourself in EVERYTHING you do. In order to do that, you have to discover what in life contributes to, or takes away from your ability to be the ultimate transhumanistic God version of You. You have to push the limitations of what is possible in order to uncover what you are capable of. And guess what? Only you can determine that. You are your own judge. 100% accountable and responsible for how close you get in life to actualizing your full potential.
“Someone once told me the definition of Hell: The last day you have on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.”
So does that neon green hair fuel and empower you to show up with more confidence, determination and empathy? Then hell ya. Rock that new dew. What really holds water in life is HOW you do things. How you show up. How you do anything is how you do everything.
In order to show up as your best self, you need fuel. You can have the best looking Benz on the highway, and you can know exactly where the Burning Man Festival is taking place and which direction to head, but without fuel, you ain’t gonna get very far. In life we focus too much on the destination and too much on the vehicle. Both are very important and necessary for the journey, but if you’re taking a figurative road trip that is going to last a lifetime (all of you reading this), how will you sustain that journey? FUEL. So why did I travel to Egypt? Why do I travel in general and accumulate wild experiences? Why did I study with the monks, live on the streets with the homeless and move across the world to live in several different countries? For me, adventure + diverse experiences = Fuel.
I honestly don’t care too much for the destination. For the arrival. I’m obsessed with the growth and the curiosity along the way. Taking time out of my schedule and life “plans” to travel, to embark on a new adventure, to cross items off my bucket list, to have wild and spontaneous moments with no immediate ROI and a very clear loss of money — all of these things fuel me so I can continue to show up as my best self. These fuel stops allow me to give my obsessive all in everything I do. Not to follow my passions, but to BE passionate. To live AS purpose, and WITH purpose.
“I’ve never cared much for the destination. The idea of landing is too finite for my imagination and sense of song. Give me a direction and a sixteen-lane highway with room to swerve and explore along the way. Like jazz, I prefer to see life as a river.”
☀️ REFLECTION 2: KNOW YOUR ENGINE
So if it’s how we show up (attitude + courage + perspective) and how we do things that matter, and to do things well you need fuel and energy, then this leads us to a very important question (or a few beautifully laid out questions for the OCD readers).
What fuels you?
What sets you on fire?
What gives you energy?
What are you curious about?
What makes your heart sing?
What are you obsessed with?
What do you do in your free time?
What makes you jump out of bed with excitement?
What seems like work to others, but feels like play to you?
What would you be doing even if no one was watching and you got no reward for it?
The ANSWER to all of these questions = Your Fuel.
Whats the difference you say? Unlike purpose or passion or many other buzz words we throw around within this self-developmental high-level coping society, fuel isn’t this mysterious, ephemeral discovery that seems to evade us everywhere we go and only gets more distant the more we chase it. Nooooo. Fuel is ABUNDANTLY AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE. It can be found in beauty and aesthetics. It can be the outfits you pick out for yourself everyday, the meal you prepare, the smile on someones face. Fuel can be your morning coffee and celery juice, your nightly nine-step skin care routine or listening to your favorite E-boy playlist. Your fuel can be building a business, teaching your 8th graders astronomy, or going on a road trip every few months with the homies in your shitty car. Your fuel can even be sneaking out and taking all your neighbors Trump signs down every night. The point is, fuel is everywhere. You just gotta find the appropriate one for you.
It’s time to change the narrative. Time to adjust, rotate and flip our frame of reference. Stop saying, “Follow your passions”. And stop asking, “What’s my purpose?” Don’t worry about pinpointing any of that. You will literally lose more sleep and even more hair trying to answer those existential questions. The amount of stories I hear of people going to any length to discover their purpose is entertaining at the least. This is simple. You don't have to meditate and sage your spherical sacred circle to discover this, and you don’t have to go on a psychedelic trip and meet Mother Ayahuasca to know your mission (although for some of you, your ego could use it).
Just find out what fuels you the most (pay attention to your emotions), fill yourself with more of that fuel, and continue forward on your journey chasing your curiosities and tasting from the hors d’oeuvre’s of life until eventually, you accumulate enough contrasting experiences to narrow your focus more and more and you really begin to understand who you are and what you’re capable of. It's not about what is the best or hottest thing according to society, or what will make you the most bitcoin or what is right and what is wrong. There’s no such thing. It’s about what is best for YOU. Customize your life so you can productize your purpose.
Remember. You ARE [the] purpose. And you are a reservoir of limitless passion, wonder and zeal. You just gotta fill yourself with the proper fuel that gets that engine running and ignites your inner soul, allowing you to show up with 100% power and life (energy) to anything and everything you experience. You know what we call this process and skill of finding the proper fuel to charge yourself? Self-Awareness. What fuel is good for one car will destroy the engine of another. Know your engine. Know your fuel.
☀️ REFLECTION 3: EVERYTHING IS IMPERMANENT
If you have read up to this point, then you will have noticed that I literally have not talked about Egypt at all. In fact, I’ve just been preaching to the choir and this article is nothing what I thought it was going to be. For real. You have probably heard the saying before that the only constant in life is change. Nothing is permanent, nothing is static, and everything eventually withers and dies, only to be reborn again and begin the process anew.
Well, fuel is kinda like change. Our life journey is beyond unpredictable. We don’t know the length of time we have, nor do we even know how it will end, where we will end up, and what things will be thrown at us. But one thing is for certain… to stay in motion and continue to progress in life, you will always need fuel. I guess that’s why I’m harping so much on this fuel topic. The reason why I think it is so important is because we all go through tough times in life. At some point, we will all experience tragedy and adversity at some level. And it can beat you down. It’s in those moments that we feel like we have no purpose. We forget who we are as we merely try to survive. In those bleakest and darkest moments, fuel is what keeps you going. Step by step, day by day, until eventually you can begin to lift your head up to see the sunrise on the horizon. Fuel keeps us going when we don’t think we can go any further.
There is one last sincere question that you can ask yourself to discover what your fuel is. This is the question:
When I fail, fall down, or get beat down in life, what are the positive things I consistently resort back to?
My answer: Travel & music.
Whenever I went through really painful moments in my life, some that I didn’t think I could overcome, my automatic fallback and final act of self-preservation was to travel (and I listen to music all day, everyday lol. I’m amazing at Spotify). It’s what kept me sane. It’s what kept me going. It gave me something to hope for and look forward to. Travel literally saved me in my darkest hours. And you wanna know what’s interesting? Everyone told me it was escapism. That I was running from my problems. And for a while there, I actually believed that powerfully toxic lie. But as I worked more on myself and simply focused on becoming the best version of me that I could possibly be, I became more self-aware. And in that process of increasing my self-awareness I realized that for me, travel wasn’t an act of irresponsibility or a distraction from my challenges. No. It was my FUEL.
SO IN CONCLUSION…
This article had absolutely nothing to do with Egypt. So sorry about that. But as with all my travels, I learned some eye opening lessons (which is my next blog post titled, “My Book of Realizations”). One of those is that you gotta know what fuels you. Once you do, then everything in life is soooo much simpler. Trust me on this. When you know what fuels you, you can forget about “how” you’re going to get to your destination and just enjoy the journey because you know you have enough fuel to take wrong turns, enjoy pit stops, and leave the vehicle on idle for hours on end, just cause you frickin want to and you can.
So my friends, be flexible. Be adaptable. Fall in love with unpredictability and uncertainty. Chase your curiosity. Try new things and immerse yourself in diverse experiences. Pay attention to what lights you up and fills you with energy, excitement and wonder, cause those are just fancier terms for fuel. Be hungry. Be tenacious. Be compassionate and understanding of others, for they are also on their own road trip of life. Be authentic. Be purpose. Be you.