In Pursuit of Selflessness

I am putting my running shoes away. I am tired of running from just about everything--myself, my past, places, people, things, ventures, failures, disappointments...I'll admit--I never had a plan and still don't have one. Sure I had and still have some things I would like to achieve, things I would like to have, but overall there is no plan and there never was. I really wonder if most young people were honest with themselves would they them agree with me? We wander aimlessly trying to figure out what it is we want to do.

I finally realized that my life is not my own and it never really was. I think most people go through life trying to own their life, trying to control their lives and are constantly frustrated because they don't want to face the fact that they don't belong to themselves. You either belong to God or not, or your spouse, or your children, or your job/career, maybe even your parents--but always someone or something owns you--you will always have to submit in the end, to relinquish your selfishness to accomodate someone else or something else and in the end you never belong to yourself.

I think this is the rampant lies our culture feeds us--is that we are free to be ourselves, to follow our hearts to be all that we can be, we can afford to be selfish and pursue what we want to pursue for ourselves--its a "all about me" generation, we have a massive addiction to ourselves, to pleasing ourselves, yet in the end we are really not pleased because while being selfish maybe pleasurable, it is not long lasting. I am beginning to believe that it is the most selfless acts, the acts of sacrificing your own desires that really lead to the most pleasure in life. Once again, a principle that makes no sense on a rational level but makes perfect sense on a spiritual one.

Living for yourself is quite the unfulfilling life. Living your life to help others live their lives, that is fulfilling. A selfish person is a miserable person.

I have been thinking about some really deep things lately. Maybe your age does catch up with you after awhile when you realize you can no longer fool around, that life has a whole lot more than vain pursuits. I think when you start to think about settling down you also start to view and measure your life and its worth and value and what has meaning in it, if anything.

In settling down while you have given up pursuit, it positions you to receive and hear from God what it is that He truely has entailed for your life, what mission that He wants you to encounter. You in essence receive another pursuit--a Godly pursuit, a pursuit of vision and purpose and perspective. A selfless pursuit, a sacrificial pursuit--where God wanted you in the first place.