I want to let you all in on a little something today. It astounds me how something this elementary rarely makes its way into our daily conversations.
From school to college (if you did go to one) and later in life, from your family to your friends and even with strangers at a party -- you are expected to know exactly what you are doing with your life. Think about how best to use this one life of yours! And be quick, lest you loose out on that opportunity! Get a degree, get a well paying job, start a family, get that mortgage... It is almost tragic how so much emphasis is misplaced on this one thing, being sure of your life.
Days and years, time just seems to fly by you, faster and faster as you age. While you were trying to juggle all that you intended to do, life just happened. You feel sidelined. You thought 2016 sucked and 2017 was going to be different. You're now more than 6 months in to this "new" year and you've barely scratched the surface of all that you put yourself up to. What happened?
Some people, like you, just aren't cut out for it, you think. And from the bias of closely observing your own failures from the inside of your own head, it seems that everyone else has it much better. They all seem so happy, on Instagram!
Listen now.
You might not believe in luck, but you ought to believe in the chaotic field that is reality. Sure, people who work towards a goal are much more likely to achieve it than those who don't. But it's mighty rich and in my opinion, a fair bit egotistical, to believe that one could actually will something into existence.
The universe isn't all that fair you see. You don't notice those who didn't make it. Achieving success/happiness/_your_goal_here_ is not mathematical or based on pure willpower or even hard work.
This is not meant as discouragement. This is to cut ourselves some slack while we see things for the way they are. There is better way than succumbing to these common self-defeating, self-loathing patterns. It is to nip despair right in its bud and plant seeds of acceptance towards this reality.
What do you want to be? What do you want to do? Who are you? The people around you expect you to be able to answer these questions to them, often with an air of unflinching confidence. In the long run however, you are at most only accountable to you, and even that is a stretch -- if people were indeed fully accountable to themselves for everything they did, they might not be able to live with themselves.
As the famous 1999 spoken song by Baz Luhrmann says, in the words of The Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich:
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
So here's to the ones who aren't making it the way they want to. Who feel as if they are in a rut. Who don't know what to do with the rest of their lives. Here's to being lost in this chaos.
It is okay.
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