Trying to be somebody is exhausting! (Don't we all know?) Trying to be somebody or get somewhere is a place of stress, a place of lack, an assumption that you don't already have what you need to be happy or even just okay. We all are already somebody; we all have ideas about who we are: "I am somebody who likes this and not that, who can do this and not that, who does this and not that, who had this happen and not that, who wants this and not that…" And that somebody invariably feels lacking in some way. However that somebody doesn't actually exist, except as ideas about ourselves. We have a storyline going on in our mind about who we are, where we've come from, where we want to go, and what we need to get there.

Often the past is something we feel needs to be redeemed by the future: Something happened or didn't happen in the past, so we feel we need something to happen to make us feel better about our past, our life, and ourselves! Without a sense of something being wrong or of something lacking, we wouldn't need the future to be a certain way so that we, once and for all, can feel like we and our life are okay just the way they are.

The storyline in our minds is usually a rather unhappy one, but we hope it will have a happy ending. If it doesn't, that will prove that we were right all along—we are unworthy! And we will never be happy. The mind usually focuses on some goal or desire that it believes will redeem us, something we don't currently have: "When I finally meet the right person, when I have a baby, when I'm free to travel around the world, when I have enough money, when I lose weight…. then I will be happy. Then I will be whole."

The egoic mind plays a terrible trick on us in telling us that we are flawed and we have to do something or get something to be happy or acceptable (To others? To ourselves? To God? To whom?). This is the most basic lie, and it underlies our humanity. It is the original sin we seem to carry around: We are bad and imperfect, and we must do something or get something to make amends or right the situation. Some version of this story runs through everyone's mind or unconscious, I'm guessing. Within humanity, a sense of unworthiness runs deep. What we do to soothe, heal, or fill this lack varies greatly, but most of us feel a need to do or get something.

So much of our doing and striving is fueled by this sense of lack. What if we just stopped for a moment and took a good look at the truth: There is nothing missing within us or about life. Life is and we are just as life is and we are meant to be—because life is and we are! Who knows why? We don't know why things are the way they are, but to assume they should be otherwise is to make a monumental mistake, which leads to a lot of suffering. Things are as they are, we are as we are, others are as they are—and things are constantly changing. Why should anything be different than it is in this moment? Just because the ego wants it to be different? What is the ego? The ego is the originator of the thought "I want…." The ego doesn't exist except as thoughts and desires. Where did all our thoughts and desires come from? Now, that is the great mystery.

Our thoughts and desires are the programming that makes us human, and part of this programming is a sense of lack and a drive to fill that sense of lack. This makes the world go around, but we don't need this sense of lack to make the world go around. It would be quite a different world if lack and desire weren't running it. The sense of lack and the desire to fill it, to be whole, to be special, to be somebody, holds the ego in place. It gives it a self-image and something to do. Without a self-image as flawed and the desire to be somebody, who would you be? The ego is nothing without its images and goals, and that's the truth.

When you just stop trying for moment and look and see what is really here, all you can find is consciousness experiencing life. Consciousness doesn't look a certain way, it doesn't have a name, and it isn't trying to be somebody or get somewhere. It is just enjoying life just as it is. That which is capable of noticing the you that is trying to be somebody is who you really are. You can drop out of the race to get it right and be okay anytime you like. You just have to see that what is discontent and striving to be happy is just the you that is part of the story of you, not the real you. The you in the story you create about yourself is striving very hard to be okay and be happy, but that isn't who you really are! You are that which is outside that story. You drop out of that story whenever you realize this and allow yourself to just experience life, free of the "me" who is having a particular experience that it likes or doesn't like.

From Living in the Now by Gina Lake. Read more excerpts and find out more about Living in the Now.