If you have no idea what you want, run away

Be it in work, family or whatever avenue in life, this line might just save you the way it did me

Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash

I collapsed onto the wooden bench like I’d taken a bullet to the chest.

It had been one of the craziest lunch shifts I’d ever experienced at an old pub I used to work at. Incorrect drinks orders. Streak marks on the floor where someone had dropped a steak platter. My boss clenching his stress ball in his office after one member of staff decided not to turn up.

“I gotta grab a smoke.”

I rushed out the back of the pub with sweat still dripping from my forehead and took the proverbial sniper’s hit. The wooden bench didn’t provide the comfiest landing, but at least I could rest my legs.

I’d spent the last 6 years of my life doing bar and pub work on and off to supplement my lifestyle as a session musician in London, England. I’d seen it all. Gypsies trashing one place and driving off laughing. Bankers and corporate sharks scoffing and belittling me. One guy even ran inside once, claiming he was about to be murdered and we had to protect him.

I don’t know why it was this shift with the botched drinks orders and the sloppy steak platter, but I hit a point where I knew that this wasn’t the life I’d envisioned for myself.

I knew this was true when I noticed the filter on my cigarette began tasting salty from a few stray tears.

That was when Dan walked outside.

“All good, Will?”

“Doing OK, chef.”

Dan was this laissez-faire guy who would laugh when the place was at capacity. He was from Tennessee, but had lost his accent on the plane ride over. Slicked back, jet black hair. Immaculate white overalls. Eyes that could pierce any lie.

“Well, that’s horseshit.”

“Yeah, suppose I’m not really.”

I’d only ever spoken to Dan about music, travelling and politics before. He was always honest in his assessments, never caring about being disliked or disagreed with.

Perhaps it was the exhaustion from the shift; perhaps it was a fleeting moment of vulnerability — but I opened up to him.

I explained my situation and how I’d been following my dreams for 8 years at this point. The main band I played in had collapsed due to internal conflict. The session work was on and off. I’d made some of the greatest memories of my life, but I also felt like I had no idea what I was doing; like I was a rolling stone, but I had no choice over which hill I was rolling down.

Dan nodded, then paused.

“Sounds like you have no idea what you want right now.”

I nodded back.

Then he proceeded to give me a piece of advice — one that has stuck with me to this day, and one that I still use whenever I’m in doubt about my direction in life. It completely and utterly floored me as he presented an angle I’d never considered.

“Do you know what you don’t want?”

“Erm… I suppose?”

“Good, run away from that.”

Right as he said this, the ticket machine fired off a food order. He said he hoped I’d figure it out, then jogged back inside.

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It took me a few days to process what Dan actually meant by this.

It sounded kind of cryptic at first. But the more I thought about it, the more what he said resonated throughout me.

I knew I didn’t want to be isolated from my family.
I knew I didn’t want to struggle from paycheck to paycheck.
I knew I didn’t want to have zero idea where my future would lie in 2 years.

And yet that was my scenario.

All because I was blinded by this idea that I’d be a failure if I didn’t achieve my dream.

I was that kid who escaped the supposedly monotonous and close-minded countryside to go after my name in neon in the big city.

But all it had done was made me feel so disconnected from a part of myself that I felt paralysed and like I loathed certain parts of who I was.

I knew I didn’t want a lifestyle that made me feel that way, but I was living in one.

This conversation happened in January 2020. Not long after this, a certain, infamous television announcement came on informing us we must stay at home. With only 24 hours notice, I knew this was my chance. My girlfriend and I packed up what we could into my bitesize Volkswagen Polo and drove to spend the undetermined future back home at my parent’s house in the countryside.

It was there I dived further into what I didn’t want my life to look like, and it was that series of thoughts that led to me living here in Portugal.

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The amount of potential in this world is infinite.

I am a firm believer that you can create the life you want if you really put your mind to it.

However, sometimes in the heat of us attempting to get by, we lose sight of what it is we truly want. Sometimes, when the heat gets borderline unbearable, we can’t even begin to envision what we want at all.

But there’s one thing us humans are incredibly good at, and that is determining what we don’t want. And more often than not, this ends up aligning with the situations we find ourselves in.

Now, I’m not advocating you pack a bag and ship yourself off to Tibet to become a monk. However, the first steps to knowing what you want from your life is to rule out what you definitely don’t want.

If you don’t want to wake up feeling terrible and groggy, run away from the drinking.

If you don’t want to find yourself feeling inadequate, run away from the people that make you feel that way.

If you don’t want to feel isolated from your family, run away from where you are and towards them.

If you don’t want to feel weak physically, run… well, in that case, just run.

You will end up in the wilderness. But from there, purpose beckons out, and it does so in a way it could never if you stayed in the same, rigid, destructive environments you currently are.

The courage to become who we truly are lies in our ability to leave behind that which kills us.

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Thanks for reading, gang.

I just wanted to give a heads up on a special offer I’m running at the moment.

The next 5 people who subscribe to Turning the Page on an annual subscription will receive a free edit done by yours truly, where I’ll help you turn your next newsletter, article or email into an emotional powerhouse that your audience can’t help but read the entire way down.

Wishing you a great weekend ahead.

Until we ride again,

WM

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