WHY?

Why get up in the morning? Why go to work? Why try at all?

What's the point? What is the gain? What's the reason?

Those last three questions are three of the most dangerous questions a person can ask of himself.

I choose to answer them most of the time in this manner.

What's the point? Because I can.

What is the gain? I don't know, but I am going to find out.

What's the reason? Because I don't have to worry about failing anymore, and so I am unafraid to try, thanks to God.

Those answers might not make any sense at all to you. Or, they may seem too short. Maybe they just don't answer ENOUGH.

They are my answers, they belong to me. Your answers may differ; do not worry if they do.

I have developed these answers through countless trials and errors. I did not arrive at them in the course of one evening. These answers are simply a way for me to understand my part, if I have a part at all. They are a way for me to understand that life, and efforts, and thus results do not center around me. I used to get so worked up about the amount of effort I was putting into something, and about the results, regardless of good or bad. And because I did, I didn't enjoy the experience of the process.

The other day, I told a good friend that I am able to look forward to the challenge of an unsolvable problem. He looked at me as if I were a weirdo...for a moment. But then I explained to him that it wasn't the event of the unsolvable problem that was so attractive, but all the experience and emotion that went along with it. In essence, it is life. In the past, I spent my time worrying about results that mostly I had no control over, and fretting about feeling a bad emotion such as fear, pain, or sadness.

Mark my words, I will feel sad, lonely, afraid, and hurt many more times in this world during the remainder of my life. Many more times, I will ask God to give me peace I cannot generate by myself. But mostly, I will walk through these events with the answers to the above questions in the forefront of my mind. They will remind me of who I am, and of Who lives in me. And once I am reminded of that, why...is there anything I cannot accomplish, anything I cannot walk through?