Who Am I?

As this will be my very first blog-post I thought that it might be appropriate to introduce and describe myself. Undertaking such a feat has however proved to be much harder and challenging than I first imagined. While it’s tempting to grab a few intriguing keywords and flick them on a page I find this to be all too simplistic and non-descriptive. Capturing my essence, hundreds upon hundreds of hours of life experience into a few keywords, no, that’s just not me.

A first attempt…

There are several reasons as to why I decided to start this website and blog. Primarily it’s a result of feeling not quite content and generally awkward about my life. It’s an attempt to begin documenting my journey in life to understand myself, who I  am, where I’m going and what I might become. I guess you could call it a real-time biography if you like.

Who Am I? (by flickr/>Shannon<)

My intention is to achieve this through self observation, psychology, logic, reasoning and science. I don’t expect to find answers quickly, nor do I expect to learn from only one reference or source. Understanding who I am will take hard work and a genuine desire to learn about myself. I’m somewhat worried that there will be a problem with maintaining and updating the blog. You see self-discipline is one of those things I believe to lack, seriously lack. This seemingly lack of self-discipline might also be a consequence of not having a guiding life purpose which may lead me to lose interest in whatever it is that I’m currently doing.

The balance between my willpower, intention and self-discipline is unfortunately not where it should be. This typically manifests itself with me getting extremely excited about a particular idea, say a blog. The initial surge of excitement will be there for a few days, maybe a week, through the use of sheer willpower. Unfortunately when it’s time for my discipline to kick in it almost always falls apart and slowly fades away as yet another “failure”.

This scares me, especially when it comes to this blog as I will publicly expose my perhaps sometimes very personal flaws. I have begun work on improving what I think is the lack of self-discipline. Hopefully this will allow me to sustain an interest in documenting this journey and most importantly continue my work in understanding myself and discovering how I can find, or create, the meaning and purpose of my life.

… back on track, my purpose…

I seek the meaning and purpose of my life, as I’m sure many of us do. It would be possible to go about this in many different ways. In fact I think each one of us will do this in a way which is completely unique. While some might argue that we should follow one path to enlightenment, I don’t buy into that. I don’t think there is the one way we should all travel. There are instead what I believe guidelines that we can follow and on my journey I will hopefully discover what they are and share them with you. There are no shortcuts, no magic pills or secret tapes that can teach us the one way.

Where to next? (by flickr/Bogdan Suditu)

Life could really be thought of as a series of roads on which we drive our car. Each crossroad represents another choice or direction that we can take in life. There is always the road which goes straight ahead, the safe bet. It’s big and wide and plenty of people travel it and each stop along the way is well documented. Little effort is required to travel this road. All of those smaller roads where only few people have travelled before me, that’s where I want to go. I’m trying to figure out how to best navigate myself through the endless choice of turns I’ll no doubt come across in life.

One of the things I’m seeking is a guiding sentence, or two, that permeates my entire life and touches the very core of me. This sentence is what I believe to be my purpose. Something that is timeless and not attached to physical assets. I believe that my purpose will not be defined as doing one particular thing, or job, but rather having a philosophy for life. A philosophy that can justify my existence, help me achieve genuine and authentic happiness as well as guiding me when I don’t know which road to travel next.

… and what about you, the reader…

First and foremost I’m writing this to help myself to find meaning and purpose in life. I don’t know if this is will be at all applicable to your particular life situation, but I do hope you can find a way to make the information useful. I will not pretend to have all the answers, nor claim any sort of authority on self-help and personal development. I’m doing what works for me and share the results of my labour with you.

If you find what I’m sharing useful that’s fantastic. I would be really intrigued to read about how you seek/sought or found your purpose and meaning in your life.

… concluding thoughts!

Consciously committing to this journey have stirred up all sorts of emotions. Earlier during the writing of this post I had a slight anxiety-attack, nothing serious, but enough to jolt me with doubt about this whole thing. I was struck by fear of learning about myself, who I truly am. I think this might be related to unresolved issues or feelings towards my current situation. With unresolved I mean, not dealt with. Too much of my time is absorbed by things I don’t control or necessarily feel resonates with who I want to become. I can’t yet put my finger on what it is that I’m becoming, but I’m hoping that I will find it soon.

Thank you so much for reading,
Christoffer