Why do it?

Here's a question. When you decide to do something, anything, why do you decide to do it?

I believe that this is an essential question that we have to ask ourselves in order to maintain a semblance of control on our own lives. If we never ask why then we must be pulled along by influences greater than ourselves.

Why should I have children? Why should I get married? Why should I take this job? Why should I love someone more than another?

The questions are endless. There are a million directions between here and tomorrow and yet life expects you to start somewhere. Anywhere. Sometimes it feels like I'm just moving along day by day without knowing what brought me to this place. I wonder if I asked myself why enough. Or if I did ask myself, did I really want to know the answer...

I don't know if I want to know the whys about myself some days. I feel like I won't like the answers. I realized lately that I've lost all sense of a moral compass. Ever since I stopped believing in Christian faith I stopped connecting to a greater moral order. I honestly never realized how lost I felt, from an ethical standpoint, until recently when I started asking myself "why am I doing X thing?" And I realized that I have lost my belief structure, which has left me floundering, trying to decide what the right decisions are.

Is it easier just to believe in something, a higher power, a religious organization, in order to give your life structure? To answer the why? Or does it mean that you aren't strong enough to make decisions based on your intellect and experience? To base them on what you've personally experienced and can grasp?

I can't go back to what I grew up in, but I need to find something to hold onto. I suppose I will just have to keep asking myself why before I make decisions and hope I decide for the right reasons.