How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living

by Rob Bell

How we respond to what happens to us—especially the painful, excruciating things that we never wanted and we have no control over—is a creative act.

Cynicism says, There’s nothing new to make here. Often, cynicism presents itself as wisdom, but it usually comes from a wound.

Cynicism acts as though it’s seen a lot and knows how the world works, shooting down new ideas and efforts as childish and uninformed. Cynicism points out all the ways something could go wrong, how stupid it is, and what a waste of time it would be. Cynicism holds things at a distance, analyzing and mocking and noting all the possibilities for failure. Often, this is because the cynic did try something new at some point and it went belly up, he was booed off the stage, and that pain causes him to critique and ridicule because there aren’t any risks in doing that. If you hold something at a distance and make fun of it, then it can’t hurt you.

Despair says, Nothing that we make matters. Despair reflects a pervasive dread that it’s all pointless and that we are, in the end, simply wasting our time.

Boredom, cynicism, and despair are spiritual diseases because they disconnect us from the most primal truth about ourselves—that we are here.

The blinking line also asks a question: Who are you to do this? And that question can be paralyzing. It can prevent us from overcoming inertia. It can cause crippling doubt and stress. It can keep us stuck on the couch while life passes us by.

To answer the question, Who are you to do this?, you first have to get out of your head.

Like a tape that’s jammed on “repeat,” these destructive messages will drain an extraordinary amount of your energies if you aren’t clear and focused and grounded.

Who you aren’t isn’t interesting. You have a list of all the things you aren’t, the things you can’t do, the things you’ve tried that didn’t go well. Regrets, mistakes that haunt you, moments when you crawled home in humiliation. For many of us, this list is the source of a number of head games, usually involving the words, Not _________ enough. Not smart enough, not talented enough, not disciplined enough, not educated enough, not beautiful, thin, popular, or hardworking enough,

If you focus on who you aren’t, and what you don’t have, or where you haven’t been, or skills or talents or tools or resources you’re convinced aren’t yours, precious energy will slip through your fingers that you could use to do something with that blinking line.

Decide now that you will not spend your precious energy speculating about someone else’s life and how it compares with yours.

We rob ourselves of immeasurable joy when we compare what we do know about ourselves with what we don’t know about someone else.

There will always be someone who’s smarter than you. There will always be someone with more raw talent than you. There will always be someone more experienced and better qualified and harder working and stronger and more articulate and more creative with more stamina who can sing better than you can. But who you aren’t isn’t interesting. And who they are isn’t interesting when it comes to who you are and what your path is.

everybody sits down to a blank page. Or business plan. Or test or experiment or meeting or deal. Or child or job or life. Especially those who have done it before.

This growing technique and expertise can help you create and build and act with more ease and excellence, but it cannot help you avoid the blank page.

Whoever you are and whatever work you do, no one has ever lived your life with your particular challenges and possibilities.

It can be intimidating when you look around and see the superstars in whatever field you’re in doing their thing. You see the tremendous momentum they gain from success after success and it can easily plant the question in your heart, Why should I even try? Or you can see it another way. It can be intimidating, or it can be liberating, because if everybody starts with a blank page, then everybody starts from the same place.

Who am I not to do this?

You try lots of different things. You volunteer, you sign up, you take a class, you do an internship, you get the training, you shadow someone around for a day who does something that intrigues you. You follow your curiosity. You watch for things that grab your attention. This is much easier when you’re younger and have less financial pressure and fewer others depending on you, but it’s true no matter how old you are. You explore the possibilities because you can’t steer a parked car.

Some people find their ikigai by asking, What do I love to do? Others find theirs by asking, What makes me angry? What wrongs need to be righted? What injustice needs to be resisted?

Which leads to another truth about your ikigai: It may involve a paycheck and it may not.

When you’re starting out—or starting over—it can be hard to imagine that there’s a life of satisfying contribution out there somewhere for you. The idea of having something to get you out of bed in the morning that you actually enjoy doing can seem like an illusion, a fairy tale for people who don’t know how cold and lonely the world really is.

This is why it’s absolutely vital for you to embrace at the outset the idea that you are a divine piece of work, created to do good in the world. The universe is not neutral or, worse, against you. When you set out to find your path, the universe is on your side. That is the faith that keeps you going.

We’re all a work in progress, dealing with the voices filling our minds and hearts with destructive messages, searching for that sense of satisfying contribution, trying new things, all of it out of a desir...

Your ikigai might involve an intentional step you’re taking now to end this phase of your life so that you can start another one.

New fuel is a particular kind of fuel. Whatever you’re doing is exciting, novel, fresh—the details sparkle and shine.

You discover why you’re doing this work. Because whatever romance there is in writing or speaking or touring or being an executive or running an urban garden project or doing humanitarian work or being a lawyer or nurse or teacher or manager or architect or having your own store or starting a charity—when the newness wears off, you are left with the pure undiluted slog of the work.

Craft is when you have a profound sense of gratitude that you even get to do this. Craft is when you relish the details. Craft is your awareness that all the hours you’re putting in are adding up to something, that they’re producing in you skill and character and substance. Craft is when you meet up with someone else who’s serious about her craft and you can talk for hours about the subtle nuances and acquired wisdom of the work. Craft is when you realize that you’re building muscles and habits that are helping you do better what you do. Craft is when you have a deep respect for the form and shape and content of what you’re doing. Craft is when you see yourself part of a long line of people who have done this particular work. Craft is when you’re humbled because you know that no matter how many years you get to do this, there will always be room to learn and grow.

Goals and plans are fine, and they can often be effective motivators, but success promises something it can’t deliver. As soon as you reach your goal, success creates a new one, which creates new anxieties and stresses. Success is when you’re seduced into thinking that your joy and satisfaction are not here but there—somewhere in the future, at some moment when you accomplish X or you win Y. Success can never get enough.

Success says, What more can I get? Craft says, Can you believe I get to do this?

What would it look like for you to approach tomorrow with a sense of honor and privilege, believing that you have work to do in the world, that it matters, that it’s needed, that you have a path and you’re working your craft?

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When you start out on your path, there’s often a purity to the work, a romantic sort of idealism that drew you to it.

And then we get into it and we discover that some people can’t be trusted and we spend a tremendous number of hours on distracting details and sometimes we pour our energies into a particular project or person and it falls apart and we’re left wondering, Why is this so difficult?

But you don’t have to know the seventeenth step. You only have to know the first step. Because the first number is always 1. Start with 1.

To do anything new—to do the 1—requires tremendous mental fortitude to not think about 2 or 3 yet. That time will come. And it is not now. Now is the time for 1.

You start with your 1, and then you suspend judgment on what you’re doing, because you don’t know what you have when you start. No one does.

When you are constantly judging what you’re doing, you aren’t here. You aren’t present. You are standing outside of your life, looking in, observing.

Better to have a stomach full of butterflies than to feel like your life is passing you by.

We work hard to outline and plan and design and estimate and organize whatever it is we’ve set out to do, all the while keeping in mind that when we start, we don’t actually know what we have on our hands.

It may be shorter or wider or longer or taller or louder or quieter or bigger or smaller than we originally thought. We don’t know, and so we suspend judgment. Right now, all we have is the satisfaction of doing it.

If your life isn’t what it could be, if you know there’s more, if you know you could fly higher, then it’s time to start building a ramp.

Whoever you are and whatever your ikigai is and however you move in the world, it always involves risk.

How is not trying a risk? You risk settling and continuing in the same direction in the same way, wondering about other paths and possibilities, believing that this is as good as it gets while discontent gnaws away at your soul.

There are always two risks. There’s the risk of trying something new, and there’s the risk of not trying it.

Whether you are trying something new or doing the exact same thing, it’s all risky. Failure is simply another opportunity to learn.

We love to believe that we are sophisticated, refined people with good taste and a calm, reasoned view of the world. But we’re also very, very simple: We want a little risk in our lives because it keeps things interesting. It wakes us up, it gives us a sense that we’re alive and breathing and doing something with our lives.

When you’re starting out, or when you’re starting over, you do whatever work you can. You take whatever opportunities you are given. You do it with a smile. You give it everything you have. You take notes, you ask questions. And when you get the chance to interact with someone who is doing what you would love to do someday, you lean in and you listen intently.

The first thing you have to do is throw yourself into whatever it is you’re doing.

Throwing yourself into it begins with being grateful that you even have something to throw yourself into.

If you are destined for something more, that “more” will only happen because you throw yourself into whatever it is you’re doing.