Q: “Nothing really appeals to me right now… where should I go to find myself?”

A: Go look in a mirror. There you are.

Now please hustle back to your life–you know, that unpausable, unrepeatable, magical experience already in progress.

The idea that you may not feel fully “formed” as a young adult is neither unique nor problematic, so don’t sweat it. What is unique is that because people now graduate from school so sheltered that instead of going through their formative years in high school and college, they go through them during their twenties (or later), at a stage in life when they have the ways and means to, say, skip out to China, Honduras, or Paris to “find themselves.” That’s unique–that so many people who feel compelled to find themselves can and do take a year or more to do so, working random jobs or traveling halfway around the globe on the search.

It’s funny, too; when I’ve lost something, I always retrace my steps rather than go look in places I’ve never been before. If I can’t be myself at home, finding myself in, say, Mozambique, won’t really help… because I know upfront that the Mozambique me won’t be the real me. That will be the Mozambique me, which I’ll have to leave in Mozambique when I come home. I’ll get back and I’ll be just as lost and confused as I was when I left… because I never found the Home me. I never even looked for it.

That’s not to knock traveling or taking a little early retirement. I spent a semester in Madrid during college, and it was a fantastic time. I also spent three months skiing after grad school; once again, the adjective “fantastic” comes to mind. (I’m still not sure how I managed that extended ski trip, but I do know one thing: I am one lucky son of a gun to have pulled that off, and I will be forever thankful for the opportunity.) But let’s be clear: I found nothing in either place. In both places, because I couldn’t escape from myself, I ended up recreating all the same opportunities and struggles I had created for myself when I had been in familiar territory. Yes, the experiences shaped me; I enjoyed new scenery, soaked up local cultures, learned new skills, and in both places, filled multiple journals writing. I refined my views on life. I became more extroverted, and more appreciative.

Yet my fundamental nature was never touched.

You know when I “found” myself? It happened right here at home, and I have my wife to thank for it. It was when she looked at me one day and said, “You know, you hold a lot of grudges.” I argued that she was wrong, but three days later, with the idea still gnawing at me, I realized she had hit a nerve… which meant that she was right and I was lying to myself. That comment was the start of a long, arduous, and eternally ongoing process of peeling back my self-imposed constraints… constraints that I never would have seen if not for ongoing feedback from someone who knew me better than I knew myself.

From someone whose presence beside me defines home.

So enjoy your travels, if that’s your thing. Have a good time serving cappuccino in San Francisco or beer in NYC if that’s what you want to do. Just don’t pretend that you’re looking for something. You’re not. Every moment of your life, you are living your life, not looking for it. You never get a time out to study the pieces; you can only find by doing.

And when you do find yourself–ironically–that’s the moment that you will be home.

Enjoy this blog? Listen to my new podcast, Beyond Social. It'll help you use social media to improve the way you work and live.