Find Your Own Truth and Happiness

Part Five in the “Coming Into Your Own” Series Truth exists for each one of us. The key is to find your truth. Too often, we are influenced by the expectations of our parents and culture to define what we consider to be our true nature, or true calling in life. For many of us, finding our own truth is a process and it can take time. We look for it and sometimes we even rebel and shun the truth of others in order to come into our own truth. To run alone from the pack takes courage and a whole bunch of free will. Running with the pack is indeed easier, but perhaps a little less fulfilling. Chris Flynn-Jones from London, England shares his personal journey for seeking truth – his own unique, and personal brand of truth and how this journey, and discovery, allowed him to come into his own.nnFor me there have been four main parts to discovering a sense of purpose in life: 1. Pursuing the things in life that I thought were worth following. However, my ideas were based on the opinions of my society around me (e.g. my parents, the general western materialistic culture), rather than what I actually thought about it myself. I just sort of accepted those external ideas and reproduced them in my own life. The end result amongst other things was that I had a professional career as a climate change policy consultant in London. 2. Realizing that the life I had made for myself WAS NOT ENOUGH! There were major shortcomings in the life I was experiencing and I knew it could be better. My job was not actually creating any positive change in society. I was working full time when there were far better things to be doing with my time. I was living in polluted congested central London, when I knew I preferred a clean, open, relaxed and natural environment. 3. I cared enough to do something about it. I did not want to waste any more of my life. Who knows when we will die? Why waste some of the best years of your life to doing something you hate simply since that is what other people do? What is stopping you from putting your own ideas about what life is all about into practice? So I quit my job and dedicated several months to researching and thinking about things in life that interested me - part of figuring out what I wanted out of life. Then I worked part time for 5 months, still allowing me plenty of reflection time. I researched all topics that interested me - politics, philosophy, psychology, history, religion, spirituality etc. I soon learnt that there was more than anyone could study in even a thousand lifetimes and I realized that actually I could make most of my decisions based on what I thought and felt inside. So I listened to myself and reasoned with myself. All the information from the world around me (in books, on the internet etc.) was interesting, but essentially there was a part in me that knew the truth. 4. Throughout this whole research period I became dedicated to only believing things that I thought were true. I had followed false dreams and they had wasted my time. So I became dedicated to truth - not to knowing the whole 'Truth', but just not to believing rubbish. Next: “Coming Into Your Own” series continues with a piece of my story