Essence of Life

One of the definitions of the word essence is "the crucial element, or the most important ingredient"


I have spent an enormous amount of time pondering essence in the previous months. I have examined my own life's essence and questioning if it even exists within me. Can a life even be considered a life if it is void of essence? I believe that if you are missing that one crucial element that brings the whole life together, then it is just a recipe that is not worth cooking or sharing.

If your life were a recipe, what kind of ingredients would be listed? I feel like I have many ingredients listed in the "what you need" section of my recipe, but I have failed in mastering the perfect quantities of each to form a tasty, winning recipe. I have long put the ingredients back in to the cupboard and have forgone searching for my essence. My life's essence seems to be in a state of perpetual postponement, continuing to be an un-used recipe, not yet culminating into a wonderfully, exotic, flavorful and decadent meal worth cooking over and over again.

Maybe with a little more time, I will finally be able to master the recipe, but time along with life is of the essence. Everything linked together, moving fiercely and quickly, I am afraid I will run out of time before I am able to discover my essence. I may have to come to the realization, that the recipe of me, is not worth the page in the ultimate cook book. It is a recipe that is so tasteless, that it should never be repeated. However, with enough tweaking, can a recipe be saved? If I take a little more time in preparation and execution ,paying closer attention to all of the exact measurements of every ingredient, maybe I will be able to salvage it and cook it into something masterful.

 I have always been creative in the kitchen, not paying close attention to detail and just adding a little of this and little of that, and have never gotten bogged down in the details.  My dishes have always been wonderfully delicious and I guess I that is how I have always been in life as well.  However, I have come to realize that cooking in the kitchen of life requires a bit more precision.