Are You Accepting of This Hard Life? | Sarah Collins on Purpose, Presence, and Living Fully

What if the life you’re waiting for is already happening?In this episode of The Story of Us, Jeff Ellison sits down with Sarah Collins, creator of Living Fully with Sarah, for a thoughtful conversation about purpose, depression, spirituality, intuition, parenting, identity, happiness, and what it actually means to be present for our own lives.Sarah remembers feeling different from an early age. She struggled with the religious beliefs she inherited, questioned why she was here, and sometimes felt as though she didn’t belong on Earth at all. Those questions eventually accompanied her through depression and into adulthood, where she followed many of the familiar markers of a successful life while still sensing there had to be something more.So Sarah started searching.She read dozens of spirituality and self-help books, explored different teachers and traditions, watched what she jokingly describes as an insane number of YouTube videos, and became deeply interested in enlightenment and the meaning of life.Then came a deceptively simple question:What if your purpose isn’t some grand thing waiting for you in the future? What if it’s about being fully present in this moment?For Sarah, it was a lightbulb moment. She began reconsidering a lifetime spent looking toward some future event that would finally reveal what everything was supposed to mean.In This EpisodeFeeling different and questioning inherited beliefsDepression and the experience of not belongingFollowing society’s traditional script for successSearching for spirituality, meaning, and purposeWhy happiness can’t always be postponed until the next milestoneLearning to accept the present momentWhy suppressing difficult thoughts can make them strongerIntuition and learning to trust the quiet inner voiceLetting go of the belief that we are our thoughtsParenting without trying to control who our children becomeRethinking traditional definitions of successWhat it really means to “live fully”Sarah offers an especially interesting definition of success: being able to reach the end of each day, accept the life that was actually lived, and wake up ready to meet the next one rather than waiting until the end of life to conduct a final review.And perhaps the larger idea running through the entire conversation is beautifully simple:Stop waiting for life to begin.The better job, bigger house, next achievement, perfect relationship, or future version of ourselves may never provide the lasting fulfillment we imagine. Sarah suggests paying closer attention to what is already here instead of continually postponing happiness until something changes.Maybe purpose isn’t something we eventually find.Maybe it’s something we experience when we become present enough to notice our own lives.Visit TheStoryOfUsProject.com for more conversations and subscribe free to Letters from the Middle of It All, our weekly reflection on meaning, family, spirituality, wonder, connection, and this strange experience of being human.If this conversation reminds you of someone who keeps waiting for the next chapter to finally start living, send them this episode.The future will arrive soon enough.This moment is already here.