To be or not to be… do be do be do

Sometimes life feels like a storm raging inside you. On the outside, you appear calm, even silent, perhaps the picture of composure. But inside, there’s a whirlwind of ideas, desires, and unexplored vocations clashing, colliding, and screaming to be heard. And there you are, feeling small, fragile, untethered. Feeling, perhaps for the first time, that being human isn’t a series of accomplishments or tidy answers, but a chaotic, beautiful storm of longing, confusion, and curiosity.

Confusion is the first face of this storm. What am I even doing? What matters? Why am I here if I don’t know where I’m going? The questions don’t stop, and sometimes they keep me awake at night. And yet… in this confusion, I find a strange sort of life. It’s like a compass pointing me toward curiosity, toward the things I haven’t tried, the places I haven’t gone. I can’t see the path clearly yet, but the questions themselves are the first small steps.

Frustration follows closely behind. It is the heat of indecision, the impatience with yourself, the sharp sting of wanting clarity and finding none. Why can’t I choose one path? Why does everything feel too big and too small at the same time? Frustration, paradoxically, is fuel. It pushes you toward clarity, toward understanding which voices in your mind are truly yours and which are echoes of expectation. It is the fire that tests whether you are willing to sit with uncertainty long enough for wisdom to appear.

And then there is vulnerability—the quiet, raw, uncomfortable truth of knowing you are exposed. Vulnerability makes you fragile. Vulnerability makes you feel small. But vulnerability is also courage. It is the willingness to let the storm inside you exist without judgment, to be seen, and to see yourself without pretending you have all the answers. Vulnerability is the doorway to authenticity, connection, and even joy.

I’ve started to navigate this storm in small ways. I write. I spill my thoughts onto paper or into a note on my phone. I walk. I meditate. I breathe. I let myself sit with the discomfort without trying to solve it. Tiny steps, little experiments. Not because I know the answers, but because I am willing to discover them.

Sometimes I try things and they flop. Sometimes I don’t try at all and just stew in my own thoughts. And that’s real life. Theory is one thing; living it is completely different. The textbooks don’t tell you how exhausting it is to actually sit in uncertainty without self-judgment. They don’t tell you how easy it is to feel guilty for not “progressing” when inside you feel like a thousand pieces of yourself are pulling in opposite directions.

What I can do is notice patterns. I notice what lights a tiny spark in me, what drains me, what feels like play versus obligation. I notice when fear or perfectionism is speaking, and when curiosity is quietly whispering. And even when I fail to act on the curiosity, even when I retreat into comfort, noticing is something. It’s a small foothold in the storm, a tiny acknowledgement that maybe we’re allowed to be messy and inconsistent and still move forward.

I also keep trying little experiments. Nothing grand. Not life-altering. Just tiny tests: spending an hour on an idea, reaching out to someone I admire, walking somewhere I’ve never been, writing a note to myself. And sometimes, the experiment is just noticing that I didn’t do anything, and feeling okay with that too. Because even that is data. Even that is part of the process.

So here we are—reader and me, storm-ridden and uncertain. I have no map. I have no final answer. I just have curiosity, small steps, and an openness to feel the chaos and see what happens. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe the “solution” isn’t a solution at all. Maybe it’s just keeping ourselves present, noticing, trying, failing, and laughing at the absurdity of it all. And whispering to ourselves—do be do be do—even when we have no clue what’s next.

And speaking of noticing… there’s something I want to explore with you in a few days: mindfulness. How to be truly present in whatever you do, even when a hundred other thoughts are screaming for attention. Because maybe, amidst all the chaos, the only way to hear ourselves and the world clearly is to anchor in the present moment.