If you didn’t see the video preview to this article, what came to mind when you first read the title? I imagine there is a wide range across the readership. Does that make ‘settle down’ an idiom? Homonym? Does it matter? I could have equally been referring to a command your grandma barked because you were being too rambunctious while Grandpa was dozing in his rocker, as much as to the not-so-veiled “time-to-start-a-family” reminders your parents start giving you around age 30 every time you visit.

I didn’t have settling down to start a family or stifling my hyperactivity in mind when this subject came to me. Rather, it was an unexpected, unsettled feeling that crept in and is lingering. Despite its inexplicability, I’ve become all too familiar with this feeling.

An important first step in learning to ‘settle down’ is identifying the factors contributing to this feeling. Honestly, it could be any number of things, including significant financial and physical hardships of people close to me or ongoing personal frustrations and uncertainty at work. As I’ve thought through possible root causes, a book I read some years ago came to mind that might explain a few other possibilities.

Uncharacteristically, I didn’t write the date I started it in the front cover, but a boarding pass still marks a page, supporting the possibility the book was an airline terminal purchase. It was June 2013 and I was headed to Washington, DC the day before my birthday. I was familiar with its author, Patrick Morley, from his impactful book ‘Man in the Mirror’ I read some years earlier. In this more recent book, Man Alive, Morley theorizes that a significant number of men are mired in mediocrity, stifling their natural energy by settling for lukewarm (he calls ‘half alive’) existences. In Man Alive, he provides insightful reasons and symptoms that speak to its truth – including feelings of restlessness. He offers practical ways to live a more fulfilled life by addressing what he calls “seven primal needs”. These, and perhaps still not knowing what I want to be when I grow up, may explain at least some of the unsettled feelings that come and go in my life.

Morley uses the chapters of Man Alive to dig into ways to convert restlessness into fulfilled living by addressing these primal needs he lists in Chapter 1:

1. To feel like you don’t have to do life alone
2. To believe that God loves and cares about you personally
3. To understand how your life has a purpose, that your life is not random
4. To break free from the destructive behaviors that keep dragging you down
5. To satisfy your soul’s thirst for transcendence, awe, and communion
6. To love and be loved without reservation
7. To make a contribution and leave the world a better place

As I looked these over for the first time since 2013, it was easy to recognize the primacy of these in my life. I likewise recognize how failing to properly address them could lead to restlessness or passivity. Or both.

I hesitate to end this article having you believe I’m somehow stuck in a perpetual quagmire of uncertainty or restlessness. That’s not the case. I’ve been blessed throughout my life with many opportunities that relate to the list, and overall I’m an optimistic, happy, and fulfilled guy! But I’d be lying if I told you I never feel alone; or that I don’t struggle with my thought life; or that I don’t sometimes still wonder about my true purpose.

Patrick Morley is clearly onto something. It’s also reasonable that some of what I’m feeling has to do with crossing through deep waters with others in my life. As Dr. Don Denyes of South Church recently said, ‘standing in the river’ speaks to the problems or challenges we face. He points out that maybe God allows the BIG problems in our lives to remind us we can’t handle everything ourselves like with smaller problems. I can fix a lot of things myself. But I can’t fix cancer, my mom’s dementia, or a host of other life-altering hardships faced by people close to me (and millions of others). Neither can I predict the future. But I can embrace the present, love unreservedly, help wherever & whenever possible, work unashamedly to determine & fulfill my purpose, and live by faith knowing God is ultimately the one in control.

Maybe you can, too.

To help you, I recommend either book mentioned, Man in the Mirror or Man Alive, and visiting Patrick Morley’s blog. If you are one of the first five readers to contact me either by email at strength@beyondstrength.org or comment to this post, I’ll send you a free copy of Man Alive (a donation toward shipping is appreciated but not required). I also recommend Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life.

I appreciate you joining me to find strength in weakness, improve, and make the world a better place. And I’d love to know your thoughts on other ways to ‘settle down’.

Get Strong. Be Strong. Stay Strong.

Morley, Patrick. (2012). Man alive – transforming your 7 primal needs into a powerful spiritual life. Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah.