Define Happy.

        I’ve been doing my homework lately. You couldn’t pay me to do it in high school, but now it seems to be costing me if I don’t. I spend hours each week meditating, reading, listening to doctors and professionals, and going to therapy all in search of the key to self-fulfillment. The deeper I dive into external advice for internal satisfaction, the closer I come to realizing, there is no answer.

          We spend our lives watching our parents, our siblings, our friends, our friends’ parents, our teachers, our neighbors, authoritative figures, celebrities, influencers. We compulsively consume the world around us, shows and movies, social media, books, podcasts, music, goods and services, etc. And then we habitually interpret all these things to mean something according to what we think they should mean based on our own personal experience with all the above.

          Every single one of us has some sort of distorted view of reality polluting our thoughts and actions. For some, it can be fatal. For others, it may never beg the question. And which question? That’s another rabbit hole. Personally, I’m currently facing several: Why am I still not happy? Who am I? Who do I want to be? What is success to me? What is missing in my life that will make me happy? What the fuck do I do about it?

          This last one is really stumping me, because knowledge is power and generally the key to resolution. So, I’ve gone turbo mode into consuming all things good; any and all media around mental health and wellness. Rainbows and butterflies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But I’m coming up on bullshit fatigue, and it’s making me nauseous. Don’t get me wrong, there are some quality fucking people out there putting out quality fucking work, but at the end of the day it’s all a bunch of words printed in an instruction manual. There’s parentheses and brackets and side notes and ‘contact the support team with any further questions’ all over the booklet, but I’m still just here in my apartment confused sitting in a pile of pieces of myself.  

          I feel I’m on the precipice of my next break-through. My incapability of feeling anything lately is sparking a lightbulb. What if I nothing? What if I don’t listen to anyone tell me what I should be doing? What if I don’t think about what everyone else is thinking about? What if I don’t hate myself, because I’m actually pretty fucking cool? What if I don’t stress about what happens next, because there is absolutely nothing I can do about it? Now we’re getting somewhere. Follow-up questions: What do I do? What if I wake up and simply enjoy myself? What if I just do exactly what I want to do? What if I just exist, party of one, in a state of unwavering bliss? Feels a bit indulgent but hear me out.

Every single day something terrible happens somewhere in the world, and most days, in multiples. We hear about it, we acknowledge it, we feel sorrow, empathy, anger, and then we immediately go back to our lives no matter what they look like because that’s the only thing we can control. We desperately try to find joy any way that we can. Society tells us that if we buy the right products, look up to the right people, dedicate our time and effort to certain things, value and accomplish what everyone else values and views an accomplishment, we’ll be successful and happy. I call bullshit. And as the cards are unfolding, I’m realizing I’m right.

I’ve recently implemented my first rule to live by: If someone providing me advice/guidance does not have the life or values that resemble anything I wish to obtain, I respectfully decline. In turn, I will not solicit advice/guidance from those who do not have the life or values I wish to obtain. I know so many incredible people, many of which I love dearly, but I don’t want their life. I want my life. As complex individuals, there is no one-size fits all. Even the people that inspire me, that I look up to, are no longer allowed to be put on a pedestal in my mind. I can admire and learn from parts of their story, but their life is not mine, and I wouldn’t trade mine for theirs. Respectfully.   

Other rules to love by (‘love’ was a typo, it was supposed to be ‘live’, but I’m leaving it as ‘love’ because it feels truer): 1. Be good to people and 2. Be remembered for being impactful, not for being well-behaved. I want to be happy. I’m not sure of exactly what that means to me quite yet, but I have learned that it isn’t going to come from anything I can buy on a shelf or anyone who enters my ether. Nothing and no one can tell me what I want. Only I can do that. So, I’m strapping on my boots and going hunting for a dragon. Who knows if I’ll find it, but I’ll die trying.