Ask why.

Remember those times when your mum use to groan and wonder how that one fierce night of passion brought  her a seriously annoying, insistently questioning, constantly- ticking time bomb? 

Yeap I'm talking about you. 

Okay, put the guns down. ;) I'm only talking about your constant habit of asking WHY? WHY? WHY? when you were five (plus a few hundred other things but lets not get into all that just yet ;)

Think about it for a second. As you grow older, you start knowing more things (or at least pretending you do) and generally people grow out of the habit of asking why. 

So try this; sit down and ask yourself:

Why do you do what you do? Why? DO YOU even know anymore? 

The older we get the more we forget to ask why. And we forget to ask the very question to the most important person in our lives. Ourselves. When we were 5, we asked our parents because they were our source of knowledge (before Google came along ;) and we asked them because we felt we could trust them. Trust them to know the answers and to tell us the truth. 

How many of us can say the same about ourselves? Do you trust yourself to know what you are doing with your life this instant? 

What I have come to realize is that the older we get, the more complicated out lives get. The bills, the assignments, the kids, the mortgage, the job etc etc.... and we begin to forget or even fear asking WHY? "Because we need to get food on the table" doesn't quite sound like your childhood dream does it?

So the more roles we begin to play in our lives (we originally start out with a handful :daughter+sister+ friend and move onto a few dozen at the same time :daughter, sister, friend, mother, partner, business lady, pet owner, soccer mum, aunt, in law etc etc)  and we stop asking why.

What we do start asking instead is HOW.  

How do I get this project done?
How do I make enough for my rent?
How do I make him/her love me more?
How do I make my kid happier?
How do I make myself thinner?

But think about it. Whats the point in all of this if you don't know where you are headed? I'm not talking about the whole "save the world" stuff here. I just mean plain simple : Why am I doing this? Why am I in this job? Why am I spending my life doing this right now?

And the answer could be as simple as : I love the tons money it gives me. But at least, if that truly is the honest answer, you can then relax and look at ways of enjoying your end result. Splurge the money or save the money. Whatever, at least you know WHY. 

Or if your answer is, I'm doing this so can pay off my Student Loan then embrace it. Embrace the process of paying off those crappy loans. At least in the end, you know you were well aware of your reasons for that crappy job! and you are less likely to drown your sorrows in chocolate and rum the next time your boss messes with you because you know YOU ARE ON A MISSION!! 

So go ahead then! Just for a minute, Ask yourself, WHY?