What are you looking for...

I have climbed highest mountains, I have run through fields . . .
I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled city walls . . .
 . . . but I still haven't found what I'm looking for!

Written by Adam Clayton, Dave Evans, Larry Mullen, Paul David Hewson, 

Victor Reina • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group

Recently the meditation group grappled with the meaning of the question "What are you looking for?" The consensus was that what you look for varies with the different stages of life and with the various experiences that help our formation.  The question, however, refuses to let go and so I find that three days on I am still thinking about the question and how it impacts us at different times.  In addition to the question rolling around was the mere coincidence that I turned on the car radio just in time for the song by U2 "And I still haven't found what I'm Looking for."  I laughed at the irony.

Think about the question and juxtapose it with the lyrics and it is easy to recognize that we are constantly searching.  Searching for happiness, searching for fulfillment, searching for success and when we reach what we thought would be the pinnacle we are content for a while and then we are looking and searching again for the next thing.  It can become a point of discontent for us as we search for what it is that we think will bring us contentment, happiness or whatever it is we need or we can see it as growth because we are always learning and seeking.  A negative or a positive depending on how we frame it and use it.

I am not sure that there is ever an easy answer to this question of what are you looking for?  The answer will inevitably vary with each person who is asked as each person is in search of something unique to them.  I think it becomes difficult when we continue on the same route always searching but never finding, always wanting something but doing little to find it or to make it happen.   When we get bogged down on that kind of route we never find what we are looking for because it always remains elusive.

I have also met many people who needed someone, anyone in their life ... that would complete them. Contentment and happiness was going to be derived from an outside source.   Someone else would provide what was needed to complete and make make them happy and whole.  I think this devalues the person and what they have to offer to themselves.  Happiness is within and it is only in seeing your own value and worth, finding your happiness that someone else can add to it, they can not provide it for someone else long term because soon that will not be enough.

So, what are you looking for?  Has the search changed in the last five years?  Have you changed?  Is your focus different?  Life is a journey, we will always be looking and searching for different things as we experience life and grow.  Along that journey I hope that you have been able to give an answer to the question what are you looking for but I also hope that you are continuing to grow, seek and challenge who you are so that you still haven't found everything!