You’ve been here before, searching, looking, burning the midnight oil, tossing and turning on your bed, searching for answers and still can’t come up with anything. You are looking for that one thing that will turn your life around. You feel stuck and life is dull. You’ve tried everything, yet, you are still bored to death.

Your 9 to 5 or 5 -9 isn’t cutting it for you. You want more. You are hoping that something will click inside of you, wake you up and propel you toward your destiny. But, the only thing missing is your definition of the one thing that moves you, the one thing that makes sense, that one thing that gets you fired up.

When Michael Jordan turned 50, ESPN Magazine ran an extended essay/interview about Jordan’s continuing obsession (or idolatry) with the best days of his basketball career. The article stated:

[Jordan’s] self-esteem has always been, as he says, “tied directly to the game.” Without it, he feels adrift. Who am I? What am I doing? For the past 10 years, since retiring for the third time, he has been running, moving as fast as he could, creating distractions, distance. When the schedule clears, he’ll call his office and tell them not to bother him for a month, to let him relax and play golf. Three days later they’ll get another call, asking if the plane can pick him up and take him someplace. He’s restless …. He feels his competitiveness kick in, almost a chemical thing, and he starts working out, and he wonders: Could he play at 50? What would he do against LeBron?

What if? “It’s consumed me so much,” he says. “I’m my own worst enemy. I drove myself so much that I’m still living with some of those drives. I’m living with that. I don’t know how to get rid of it. I don’t know if I could. And here I am, still connected to the game.”

He knows he won’t ever play pro basketball again. He knows he’s got to quiet these drives, to find a way to live the life he worked so hard to create, to be still.

[Jordan asks], “How can I enjoy the next 20 years without so much of this consuming me? How can I find peace away from the game of basketball?

So, the question I want to ask you is this – what moves you? For Jordan, basketball is the one thing that moves him. Basketball is the one thing he is passionate about. He could create a little distraction and distance from the game, but only for a while. So, let me ask you: what is it, the one thing that moves you? What is the one thing you are passionate about? Does it feel like fire burning in your bones everytime you think or talk about it? If this thing is something you cannot live without – than that is the think you need to pursue with utmost intensity.

Michael Jordan Has Left the Building,” ESPN Magazine (2-22-13)

Illustration from Preachingtoday.com