Side quest or Life quest?
A continuation as promised.
Welcome back and hello to my two wonderful subscribers on here.
After an attempt to boost traffic to my Substack and previous post via my socials, I am pleasantly surprised and grateful to be able to say that there is more love and support out there than I’d imagine. It’s rather scary to put your thoughts and feelings out there on the Internet but I believe there’s a community out there for anyone—you’ve just to go out and find it yourself.
Back to this week’s topic: Side quest or Life quest?
I recently finished reading the book ‘The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life' which is admittedly a self-help book (some people cringe) but it was actually quite enlightening and gave me a different perspective on life and what I could do with mine. I picked up this book a good number of years ago on a random outing with then-friends to a Books without Borders store. The book has since sat in my dusty collection untouched until June this year, where it accompanied me on a solo trip to Italy.
‘The Happiness of Pursuit' talks about the definition of a quest, how to measure progress in said quest and shares inspiring examples from a good number of people in their own quests. A quest is not to be confused with a goal—they are apparently two very different things. A goal is objectively of a smaller scale and it’s relatively easy to attain within a short period of time. It’s essentially more objective and target-specific i.e. I will study for and take the exam to be certified in so-and-so skill. This is a very linear and easy to achieve task, you just need to put in the hours to study and take the certification exam and you’ve done it.
A quest on the other hand, is derived from an unexplainable need to do something that’s often times seen as “crazy” by others and it’s a massive amount of effort to complete. An example would be to decide to not speak for the rest of your life, carrying on in life without uttering a single word for whatever reason that compelled you to. The point of the quest is that it is highly personal and motivational for you and there is often times a number/ duration/ outcome that you’re trying to achieve. The author Chris Guillebeau, further breaks down what a quest entails and provides a framework on how or rather, what, you should do to keep track of progress to keep yourself accountable and motivated to complete the quest. That said, obviously nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to do it. If you feel like your perspective and approach to life has changed, then I suppose so will your quest. Ultimately, there is no right, wrong or supposed way you’re meant to do this, if at all.
There are different types of quest you could embark on—one main quest, a life list (mini quests to complete throughout your life) or just a list of goals to achieve even.
This brings us to the crux of this topic: What is my quest? Do I even need one?
Short answer to that is no, you don’t need have a quest to find or create a purpose for your life. We are all free human beings with free will to do whatever we want, there’s not going to be an ultimate judgement when you die on whether you had lived a purposeful life or not. I think.
Long answer where I talk about myself and my experience is that I haven’t yet quite figured out what my quest will be. I’m still very much in the season of transition and change (or a fancier way to say it is metamorphosis lol) and there is a good chance that I would probably never have a Life quest. I barely have any solid and consistent hobbies so doesn’t really make sense to run before I even know who I am. Maybe identity is the core of what I need to figure out now; how much of myself do I want to retain and to what extend do I want to change?
I do feel that my life had lacked clarity on purpose and I was just existing and performing as a socially-acceptable person. Get my university degree, find a job, try to do well at said job and earn more money which would eventually allow me to purchase a house with a partner. I actually did clear all those stages and found myself in a 3-year relationship with a house on the way. And yet I felt deeply misaligned but couldn’t really pinpoint which piece of my life was out of order. There’s a good chance that the whole thing was wrong for me, I wasn’t innately happy with who I was, who I was with and felt empty inside. I was missing a sense of purpose and fulfilment.
And so, for those who know the story, TLDR is that I ended my relationship, gave up the house, changed jobs and got into another relationship that was surprisingly the thing that pushed me to the brink of insanity and I came to my tipping point. I had a choice—to get over the whole debacle and carry on with my life or I could choose to completely reset. Spoiler alert, I chose the latter and with no regrets might I add. I have always been for the reinvention of the self, there’s literally nothing stopping us from just deciding to be a different person and recreate a whole new life for ourselves. The main thing is to decide to do it and go from there.
Many friends and colleagues tell me that I’m brave and inspirational (LOL) for pursuing what I want. My takeaway from these interactions is that at some level, everyone yearns to change their life and restart in some way. I’m very fortunate and lucky in that I have no obligations or responsibilities that restrict my choices in life. But also, it is always a choice—I’ve had my fair bouts of self-doubt, insecurities and panic but I hold strong to my decision and we work from there. Anything worthwhile is going to be challenging, if not there would be no sense of achievement or reward at the end of it all.
Said so much without saying anything at all
This is my favourite quip to use when commenting on presentations at work but alas, here I am with a post that aptly encapsulates this. If you’ve taken away nothing from whatever I have said above, just know this:
Life is short enough as it is, do you feel happy living the life you have right now? Does your cup feel full and are you fulfilled? If it’s not a resounding YES, then it’s probably time to do some reflection. Most of the time, we’re not bound to the life that we’re currently living. We all hold the power to change our lives to the version that you dream about, yearn for and envy others for. It’s just the simple act of deciding to do it, every other practical and realistic consideration aside. Nobody will judge you for your choices because everyone is going through the same thing of figuring out what the hell it is they’re doing. People only think about themselves, they’re not focusing on you.
In conclusion…
You may think that I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, and you are probably right about that. I’m still figuring myself and my life out which is no easy feat. But we push forward, life goes on and time only moves forward. So be it a Life quest or a Side quest, just get out of your own head and do something (this is more of a note to myself, readers can do whatever pleases you. It’s your life after all).
Ending off on a nice note, here’s a picture of a lunch by the beach with my cousin at Zandervoot, Netherlands last month. Isn’t that the most wonderful looking whole pickle you’ve ever seen?
