Above the storm, sun still shines
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Two weeks ago, I started my column by saying something to the effect of, “I’m too young to give advice, but I’m going to do it anyway.”
Well, I don’t usually recycle that kind of stuff, but it applies, so roll with me here while I wax poetic about life. I promise it’ll be worth it.
Here’s how I see it: Too many people in today’s world spend far too much of their lives preparing to live, and I can just about guarantee you hear and see it every day and don’t realize it.
“I’ll be fine, I just need to get this promotion.”
“Once I get that (car, boat, motorcycle, house, apartment) everything will be alright.”
“I just have to make it through this (day, week, month).”
“(High school / college) is just something I have to get through right now. Once I’m done, everything will be fine.”
What all of these people are really saying is that once they get through that difficult time, reach that milestone or buy that thing, they’ll be happy.
And they’re wrong. All of them.
They’ve been conditioned to believe that the destination is what brings happiness, and it isn’t. The destination is an infinitesimally small window of time in which you are supposed to be happy and, when these milliseconds are spread out over a lifetime, they become a very small window of happy things to look back upon.
I’m a firm believer in the saying, “The journey is the destination.” For example: Let’s say I’m trying to earn a college degree. If I hate college and see nothing but terrible circumstances surrounding every aspect of my four to six years spent in classrooms, there are only two possible outcomes. One: I won’t make it to graduation because all I see is the negative. Two: I will have spent four to six years in an environment I hate so that I can walk onto a stage, shake hands with a dean, pick up a piece of paper and (hopefully) be happy in that moment. Then, (again, hopefully) I’ll get a good job. A good job, for many people, means earning enough money to be happy outside of the office by buying more things, and the cycle continues.
I can think of no sadder way to live a life, and no better way to waste it, than working toward the possibility of happiness rather than simply being happy in every second.
I’m not saying don’t have goals; don’t dream or don’t aspire to better yourself — actually I’m saying the opposite. I’m saying that the act of graduating college, buying the Cadillac or getting the promotion is a millisecond of time that it took you years to achieve. If you view your life as a culmination of these milestones, at the end of it all, you will have lived for a few minutes. The rest of it was preparation for living a life.
Don’t fall into this trap. Find something that makes you happy and start doing that thing immediately. Ignore those who tell you can’t, won’t or shouldn’t. They’re scared that you’re right and they’re wrong, because, if they’re wrong, they’ve wasted their life.
Oh, one more thing: doing what you love and being happy as a result is the easiest and most gratifying thing in the world. If anyone tells you different, smile, nod and say “Thank you.”
They’re lost and scared. You’re lost and happy.
