What does my heart need to live?

A couple days ago in the middle of learning Khmer adjectives I stopped my fellow buddhist monk to ask him a question.

Why do I keep beating myself up? Why I am here in Cambodia? I love my job, the NGO I work for is awesome - but I have no stability, no money? This is a situation that I constantly find myself in all the time. Should I give up my morals to go work somewhere else where I can at least be confident that my needs would be meet? Am I really off value to anyone?

After my long rant of questions, the monk quietly looked at my with his eyes and simple said “Jam what does your heart need to live?”

I took a massive step back and quietly thought - this man just hit the nail on the hammer. Respect. I don’t recall anyone every asking me that question before

Since the monk was on a roll, I quietly listened while he asked me questions.

I don’t know what your needs are - but why do you set goals? Why do you want to do it?
Why are you in Cambodia?

I cleared the schedule and went home right after to spend a while reflecting on his words “What does my heart really need to live”

There is a technique that fundraiser’s ask themselves when they want to break down their programs to the core - you keep asking yourself Why? Why? Why? It’s childish but it works.  I realized my life wasn’t about fortune, fame or even recognition.
Faith, Hope and Love really remained from all these questions and at this point I never realized how spiritually I actually am. It’s funny because the man who wrote that “Paul” is one of my role models in life because of his passion. This is the man that I want to meet in heaven more than Jesus, Shackelton and Captain Crunch. This was intense.

At some point I stop staring into the candle, lied down and put on some music by my best mate. I was really hoping that his wisdom would also seep in because I deeply miss his company.

Later on his song rang through “we need revolution to lead our people…keep your eyes on the prize, every man want heaven but no man wanna die…so where do I go, where do I go now?”