Look at the one who claims to have found their place—see how they deceive themselves, how they console themselves with their false gods. Let your place find you, not you it. If there is something in man, it exists only because it was given.
Child.. Are you from here that you should have a place? Do you belong here that you should find your place? You are someone born in exile, away from home; it is only natural for you to feel homeless and displaced. How could anything that belongs here console you? Look at the one who claims to have found their place—see how they deceive themselves, how they console themselves with their false gods. How can something that does not exist, something uncreated, come to be? The one who says “I found my place” has merely resigned themselves to that place which found them, not the place they found. Rather than deceiving yourself and whiling away the time with hallucinations created by yourself and society, would it not be better for you to accept the truth, to stop searching for your place knowing you do not belong here, and to accept where you are as the right place? Let your place find you, not you it. If there is something in man, it exists only because it was given. Don’t let feeling like an outsider worry you.
“You have made us for Yourself, O Lord; and our heart is restless until it rests in You. For this world is not our home, but our exile.” — St. Augustine
“The soul is in exile in this world. Everything here is merely a passing shadow; true life is the moment man is reunited with his true homeland.” — St. Teresa of Ávila
“This world is an inn; whoever enters leaves, passes through without staying. The one who thinks they belong here is like someone grasping at a shadow.” — Ahmet Yesevi
For a moment, let us suppose there really is a place for man where he would find peace upon finding it. If finding it means possessing it, it comes accompanied by the fear of loss. If man has found the place he belongs, let him prepare himself right now for the agony of being deprived of it. Surely he will one day leave it behind and walk away. Rather than living a lifetime with the anxiety of losing places alongside the struggle to find one in school, at home, at work, and in many other spaces, wouldn’t it have been better if he only worried about his place in God’s sight, avoiding so much suffering by knowing that the place given to him is already the best for him?
Failing to find one’s place—feeling out of place—is generally evaluated in philosophy as a more external, more action-oriented state, distinct from simply not feeling a sense of belonging. No matter what a person has done, no matter how competent they have become through development in a subject or situation, or how many sacrifices they have made, it just never comes to fruition. Viewed in a physical sense, the topic is always closed with the notion of “right place, right time,” but what is at essence is not something manifest about the person, but that something inside them does not settle. If you ask, they may have been working at the same place for 20 years, yet they still haven’t found their place. This failure to find their place is something occurring inside them, not outside. Otherwise, if they felt they had found their place, they wouldn’t complain even if they worked under harsher conditions at that workplace for 20 years.
Although failing to find one’s place is interpreted as action-oriented, it is a matter of internal satisfaction, not external factors. Sometimes one can work without issue in a place even while earning little. Despite some flaws, one’s best friend might be someone whom nobody else likes. In truth, there is no such thing as finding one’s place. There is only managing. Patience is being exercised, or man is deceiving himself by saying “I found my place.” Perhaps he is ignoring certain truths because he has a self-interest. Man.. a creature cast down from a better state to a worse one, how could he possibly find his place? How can someone who came from a place devoid of anxieties resign themselves to lesser fears?
“My solitude is my fortress. To belong nowhere means the entire universe belongs to you.” — Tibetan Mystic Milarepa
As light floods your room, does it explain its benefit to you or ask for your view? What is given to you is just like this. It was given to you because it will already suffice for you.
You must have seen it: a child holds a star-shaped object in hand, trying to find the corresponding hole in a shape-sorting box. Only if it finds the star-shaped hole will it go inside. This is precisely the condition of man. He has a shape in his hand, but the matching hole is not in the box. At least, not in that box. The only thing to do is to look at another box. The box he needs rests within his heart. Moreover, it is such a box that all the holes in it match the shape in his hand. If what is in his hand is a star, all the holes are stars. If a cylinder, all holes are cylinders. That is how easy the path leading to God is. Yet, look and see: like a stubborn child, he persistently tries to force the shape in his hand into an ill-fitting hole, harming both himself and the box.
Yet it shouldn’t have been this difficult. And indeed, it isn’t. Man always makes his life difficult because he dislikes what is given into his hand, throwing it away to chase after things he believes are better. The light waiting outside to charge in will enter your room upon your pulling back the curtain, without asking your opinion. As light floods your room, does it explain its benefit to you or ask for your view? What is given to you is just like this. It was given to you because it will already suffice for you. Do not search for your place in this world.. for you will not find it. Because it does not exist. If the temporary, false happiness you acquire by deceiving yourself is enough for you, well, that is another matter. Close that curtain now, turn your back on the sun, return to your darkness, and try to be happy in a corner.
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” — St. Paul (Philippians 3:20)
