it’s the final draft

i sipped on my moscow mule, waiting for an answer.

a few days ago, i was in a bar in rotterdam. the girl sitting opposite me was too young for me. but i didn’t have any expectations on how the night would go. so i sipped my moscow mule and asked her a question.

what do you want?

what do you mean? she asked.

what do you want out of life? dreams, ambitions, you know. the usual.

i sipped on my moscow mule some more, waiting for an answer.

my interlocutor chuckled, as if i said a joke she hadn’t heard before. then, when she saw i was serious, she frowned.

oh, you’re serious. well, i am studying business, she said.

do you like it?

it’s fine. i guess i just want to get a job in marketing so that i can work from home and focus on myself. you know, so that i could work in my pjs and not have to do much.

i nodded politely and asked for the check.

sunset in hague, the netherlands. december 2023.

so many people are like that: choosing a B-life of preparation for the Real Thing, taking on majors “just because” and jobs that are “fine”, lacking a direction, convincing themselves that this it it.

the life.

we talk about focusing on ourselves in our spare time but when spare time arrives, we don’t know what to do with ourselves. we go about our lives making a living, paying the bills, crossing the ts and dotting the is. at night, we numb ourselves to ease off the pain of existence. then, when the time comes, we die.

what did all of that mean? and did it mean anything at all?

it’s rare to have a direction, a clear path.

but when you meet people who do, you see it in their eyes: they don’t care about other people’s opinions or society expectations. they don’t have a job or make a living or build a career or save for a mortgage. or maybe they do, but that’s not the point.

for such people, a larger paycheck means nothing if it’s not aligned with what they want to achieve. (and taking a lower paycheck for the sake of doing more of what matters is quite common.) majors don’t mean shit, and other people’s lives and posts on instagram aren’t a threat.

they know who they are and what they are doing here.

they have a purpose. a life path. a direction.

when it comes to direction in life, it’s pretty binary: you either have it or you don’t.

and when you do, everything falls in place — even if outside circumstances aren’t favourable. when you don’t, nothing will

satisfy — no matter how many amazon parcels arrive at your door or vacations you take.

a path means focus. and focus means clarity. and clarity means being able to withstand any storm life throws at you. (neitzche: a man who has the why can bear almost any how.)

because life will throw shit at you.

when you are young and naive (like my beautiful companion at the bar), death, illness, grief, wars — all of that feels too far away, almost impossible. life seems easy: it’s good now, it’s going to get only better. after all, if all we had is a blissful childhood — how can we expect anything different from the future?

it’s common to see a 19 year old who arrogantly knows what they will be doing at 50. and rare to see that same level of confidence in a 49-year old.

but life will throw curveballs. and if you don’t have clarity — that a coherent path inevitably brings — it will be too easy to start living on the defence, shielding yourself from storms vs. building vessels that might take you places.

and the older you get, the scarier it becomes, the harder it will be to forge a path. but not impossible.

when i talk to older people, it usually takes a few right questions to see: they too have dreams. there’s still a little boy or girl buried inside, wanting to come out and play.

time in itself is clarifying and growing older is a sobering experience. you suddenly learn to appreciate what you’ve got and see: the life we have now is the best we’ll ever get. and it probably won’t last forever, so it’s best to dance while there’s music in the air.

this — whatever this is for you — is the final draft.

act accordingly.

***

if you enjoyed this, you can say thanks by buying me a cup of coffee (and asking a question if you want to!) here.

cheers!

— s