What do I want

I’m struck with a moral dilemma about life, consequences, responsibility, love, selflessness, and lastly, what does sacrifice actually mean?

I’m reminded of some philosophy that says to love is to be human, and also to sacrifice. However, selflessness is something I am having to think about more deeply. About what it means to die to oneself, to relinquish one’s desires for something beyond oneself.

I don’t think I fully understand this yet.

However, after five years of running, desperately chasing stability and tranquility, I think I am finally at a place in my life where I dare to reflect. Not just about the last week or the last month, but actually reflect on the last five years, maybe even ten years, and what I hope the next five to ten years will look like.

Today, I chose to walk rather than work.

While this may seem cliche, I decided to take a walk on a Monday morning, amid a busy schedule, and told everyone I needed to feel 100%. This is something I wouldn’t have done in the past five years. Maybe it’s because I didn’t really feel I belonged. Maybe I didn’t understand my worth. Frankly, I still don’t completely understand it. But back then, I just felt the need to always be present, always working, always showing up.

Could that be what working hard was about for me?

Perhaps it has something to do with the intersections of my identity. Being Black, African, an immigrant, raised poor, and now navigating a fast-moving career in technology,a field that keeps evolving and doesn’t slow down, especially now with the rise of AI.

While walking, I found myself thinking about what the next five or ten years might look like. And for the first time in a long while, I felt like I could breathe. There was a bit of peace. Less stress. My mind was calm.

Yet, even in that calm, I noticed how quickly my mind rushed ahead, thinking about the future, about what could be, about what should be.

I don’t know if that’s what life is about.

But for that hour today, with the silence around me, the wind moving through the trees, the rhythmic sounds of leaves and branches swaying, everything seemed to converge in a way that made me stand still and simply observe my environment.

It felt powerful. It felt magical.

Going to the start…

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to die to oneself.

I see myself as someone who tries to help people. I’ve lived my life with a moral code of doing what’s right. But that can become blurry. And right now, it feels even blurrier.

Because the struggle I have endured for the past seven or eight years, I’m beginning to question whether it was ever truly mine.

Was it really what I wanted? Deep down, I’m not sure.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that many of the things I do are because of others (family, friends). And maybe that’s part of living. Maybe life is, in many ways, about living for people you care about.

I’m reminded of Viktor Frankl’s words in Man’s Search for Meaning, that every struggle must have meaning.

And I wonder if this is mine. A life lived for others.

But what does that mean for me?

I don’t quite know what to make of these feelings yet. For now, I think the only thing to do is sit with them for a while. To let them settle.

Especially as I think about the next stage of my life and the direction my journey might take.

Maybe the answer lies in working smarter and being more reflective, rather than harder. But even then, I find myself asking: what is in this for me? What truly makes me happy?

Deep down, I think solving problems and helping others brings me the most joy.

But even that is vague. What does “solving problems” really mean? does helping other equate responsibility?

What is moral duty? What is the burden of responsibility?

What is home?

Is home truly a place where someone feels seen and can be who they really are?

And then there is responsibility.

Sometimes I wonder if responsibility disguises itself as ambition, purpose, burden or struggle. When I look back, some of what I called ambition might have actually been responsibility.

And that makes me ask the same question again: what do I really want?

Honestly, I don’t know.

I have some clarity when it comes to my career. But internally, when it comes to home, to life, to meaning, I’m not sure.

What I do know is that the fire of responsibility alone is beginning to fade. And maybe what needs to replace it is something deeper than struggle or suffering.

Maybe it needs to be love.

But can love and responsibility truly see eye to eye?

Is it money? Fame? Status?

I don’t think so. Maybe it’s freedom.

But what exactly does freedom mean?

Perhaps freedom is not something we fully possess. Perhaps it’s an outcome rather than a state. Because we are always bound by responsibilities in some way.

But maybe there is a scale to how much those responsibilities weigh on us.

Could that be the difference?

Is that what I’m really seeking, more freedom?

And here I am, after writing for hours, not much clearer than when I began.

Still wondering what I want.

Maybe the answer is simpler than I think.

Maybe I should just enjoy each day as it comes. Take life as simply and gently as possible.

Maybe that’s what people mean when they say to enjoy the process rather than chase the destination.

So perhaps the better question isn’t what I want from life.

Maybe the real question is:

What will this next journey look like, everything aside?

And maybe that’s what I should focus on more, not the unanswered questions, but the path itself.

Even if the question still remains: What do I want?