Happiness, is this our end goal? Is this what we all want at the end of the day?
Looking back at my life it has always been full of checklists and dream boards.
- Every week, I set out plans to achieve in my organizer (I know it sounds weird but I would buy organizers every year since I was 10 years old).
- I had goals for my semester which looking back they were mostly academic.
- I had goals and wishes for each year that I had learnt from my parents when they would make one every new year.
- I even had goals and dreams for before I turn 40!!
Looking back its not bad, having aspirations in life that you work towards, but you know when it takes an ugly turn?
When you are really good at it for a long time! Crossing things off your list one by one, becoming a control freak and measuring happiness by how much of your lists you make.
You have these years of being a super star, someone who has it all together but make no mistake life will come and get you! And I eventually got to a point in life were I couldn't control things anymore.
I wasn't the favorite in my graduate school lab, I was getting rejected from internships, I wasn't hearing back from people who I thought I was the best candidate, I wasn't the most liked person and even sometimes disliked because I was different in some rooms. My pretty world of checklists that had gotten me so far in life was not working anymore.
You see I had checklists of how to be liked in different rooms, I had check lists of how to dress, how to impress and it just wasn't working anymore.
I was miserable, I just wanted to hide in my bed, I didn't know how to deal with uncertainties, I was a failure in my head.
I had fallen from glory, I had no purpose in life.
I tried making new rules, to pivot at they say! Maybe this isn't the best path for me in life! Maybe I will be successful somewhere else! Oh maybe I need an extra year of hard work and focusing to get better! Just maybe if I try these million other things I will find my purpose and what I'm going to be the best at!
Or maybe I'm just not good enough! Maybe I'm destined to be nothing.
Many days and months of bouncing between hope and trying harder, trying new things, reading books and blogs and then days of trying to accept that I'm a failure and I should just give up.
I'll definitely write more about those days but you know what, in one of the downest times of them all, I realized there are people living in this world, that according to my checklist should be miserable, should be hiding in their beds, but they are out and about, happy, enjoying life, getting married, planning life, traveling, yet they don't have PhD's, they don't meet societies beauty standards, they don't own a company, they are not doing ground breaking research and the biggest of them all, they are not superheros saving the world and fighting all evil. THEN WHAT ARE THEY DOING?
You see, I couldn't connect, I couldn't grasp, I only know being an over achiever, wanting to make the world a better place but through something fantastic and grand. I feel my whole life I've only seen a select few! The most successful, as if you work to get there and then life starts.
I think I've gotten life wrong, I don't get it yet, but I'm going to try to understand it. I've been trying to work so hard to be something so that my happiness begins, but some are already happy without those.
I will write about dreaming big, continuous improvement and the positive of always pushing yourself forward but what about if you don't get there, if it's not meant to be, or what about the journey there? I don't remember the journey much, it's like eyes closed fast forward to get to the prize and it all crumbles down when you have no path to look back at and enjoy and no prize! You have no clue as to what to measure your meaning with.
There must be other measures of happiness beyond checklists that everyone can use.