My prime year (41) recently ended and I moved on to the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
For those who don’t know, the answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42, according to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
While I would like to believe 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything, life is rarely that easy. We don’t get the answers we seek that easily. They are found as we progress through our lives, not in a single year. And when we die, we still likely do so with unanswered questions.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. – Soren Kierkegaard
When I graduated college and took my first steps into the career world, I looked for a course catalog and syllabus that outlined the lessons, resources, and other expectations for life. It took me years to realize there is no definite guidance in life as there was in college. No syllabus to outline the grading criteria. No course catalog to detail your way.
Over the past 42 years, I’ve learned that life will bring you the resources you need to navigate the lessons it puts before you if you are open to receiving them however they come. If you expect those resources to arrive gift-wrapped and tied with a pretty bow before you will receive them, you will always be disappointed. We must work with what we are given, even if it arrives a bit banged up.
The idea that one thing will be the answer to what will make our life complete and fulfilled is a fantasy. It’s not finding the right partner, becoming financially wealthy, or getting into the best shape of your life that will remove all of your troubles. Buying those new pillows from Wayfair or that portable personal blender from Amazon won’t significantly impact anything. Our society tells us we aren’t enough until we travel to that one place overseas, make our house picture-perfect, or buy the latest gadget. We have to be our own enough. We have to create our own solutions. We have to cultivate our own peace in life. The answer to life, the universe, and everything come from within us, not without.
“I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer,” – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To A Young Poet.
I type this blog the night before my 42nd birthday. Forty-one has been good to me. It was a prime year and taught me so much.
- I became very clear on what I will and will not accept in relationships. I spent most of the year grieving the loss of a nearly 30-year friendship. She and I grew too far apart over the previous 5 years. As the division in the nation grew, so did the division in our friendship. Some friendships aren’t meant to last a lifetime…even if they started when you were 12.
- I ended a romantic relationship with a person I loved but who wasn’t the right partner for me. The Beatles were wrong. Love isn’t all you need.
- Nothing is certain except for death. We must develop ways to function healthily in uncertainty, or we will be susceptible to false narratives to help us feel safe and secure.
- I became crystal clear regarding my purpose in life. My passion is education. Not just my own education and not just educating others in a classroom. I want to learn, apply what I have learned, and then assist others in learning what I know. I want to use my passion for education to improve the world. Knowledge is the most powerful tool a person can possess, and no one can take it from you.
- I learned that our republic was founded on a gentlemen’s agreement, which only works if all those involved are interested in upholding the agreement. If you have enough people in charge who won’t honor the agreement, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.
- I learned that my rights can be taken away at any moment for any reason. We can never rest when it comes to defending our rights. They are not guaranteed to anyone in perpetuity.
I have some hopes for the coming year, which I will refer to as The Answer. I have set goals regarding my physical, emotional, and spiritual health. I want to continue developing my writing practice and publish a paper I started writing in 2021. I also plan to take a pilgrimage, as I did in 2018.
I foster no delusions that this year will bring me the answer to life, the universe, and everything, but I know it will bring me some answers. And that’s good enough for me.