By Ellen Jurgens, TIWP Student

Sometimes when I’m feeling overwhelmed, I remind myself of the true nature of my reality. I think about the way in which I relate to the Universe, and conversely, how the Universe relates back to me, how everything is relative and can never be understood. Many of us spend our lives slowly accumulating more knowledge and a greater understanding of the world we live in. However, these are all superficial things. Superficial meaning that it can be understood, that it is possible to master. Our realities are not superficial. They are obscure and intertwined. They are projections of what we believe to be true. And since all we will ever experience is our own realities, we must accept them. What can the Universe tell us about our realities? That is what I am here to tell you.

To begin, we must accept the inevitability of uncertainty. We must grow comfortable with the unknown, to embrace the impartial darkness engulfing our world. We must recognize that our realities are based on limited knowledge, on restricted vision, that even the notion of a reality and its classification may be unique to our world. And since this darkness will not be lifted anytime soon, we must accept it. This means accepting questions without answers. Indeed answers can be sought, but answers shall not be reached through inductive means.

With the acceptance of uncertainty, we are admitting our own relative irrelevance. The endless state of the Universe makes us rather small and meaningless. We aren’t even a speck on the universe’s incomprehensibly vast timeline. Soon our world will cease to exist, and at no fault but our own, we shall too. Whether or not it happens in our lifetime, no one can deny the impermanence of life on Earth.

Now we must turn our focus to that nothingness. When removed from the backdrop of the Universe, nothing is actually quite something. Sometime tangible is always larger then something incomprehensible, even if that is the concept of infinity itself. And although the tangible seems rather unimportant after examining the intangible, it is integral. We must give purpose to what would otherwise by purposeless. Life is about accepting nothing as something. Something that is maybe irrelevant in the Universe, but incredibly powerful in our lives. We must feel excited and supported, curious and passionate. We need to experience satisfaction, so that we can tell ourselves near death
that we had an impact. Something is different in the Universe because we were there. I am here to tell you to stop asking the Universe to reveal your life’s purpose to you. You have the power to shape your reality and give yourself the purpose you yearn for.