When I look around, I see strangers and acquaintances who will likely forget me in time. They're smiling and laughing, and I am smiling too, but sometimes it is a lie. It is a lie, and my anxieties pile up in my head; I just know that they are talking behind my back--but I don't, and that makes it all the more worse. Then I take a step back and pretend that I never thought such thoughts, because they are unhealthy, and it is me in the wrong for not going with the flow. It still doesn't change the fact that I feel like my moments of happiness are getting shorter and shorter, and life feels less like something to enjoy and more like an arranged marriage. I want to be happy, I really do. But these days, it is served up with a side of worry and stress.
I do not feel like I am where I would like to be in life, and that feeling is not going to go away anytime in the near future. Sometimes, I call myself a failure, and I really do believe myself to be one at my lowest. Am I a failure? I do not know, but I am certainly not a success by my standards. My parents remind my all the time that success is happiness, and that if I get a stable, well-paying job, preferably in the medical field, everything will come together. My sister says that I should just do what I want to do, and happiness will naturally follow. Will it really though? It is frustration, what I am feeling right now as I type, and that feeling of happiness seems like a distant dream.
I totally relate on wanting to find a career that will bring true happiness. My parents' careers are polar opposites of each other, yet they both love their jobs so much. When they get home from work, they sit together and tell stories about their days. I hope to feel this passionate about my career one day. It seems like so many people feel pushed into high paying jobs, but if the cost of this success is happiness, is it worth it? My dad always tells me to do something that will make me happy because I'll work too many hours of my life to spend it miserable. Not to be sinister, but we all end up in the same ground anyway, so who cares how much money you die with?
ReplyDeleteHappiness can be so difficult to understand and achieve, especially when we have an unclear sense of what it really means to be happy. What are we supposed to be looking for? Like you mentioned, some people believe they will reach happiness from success, and others from just doing what they love. For me, I think happiness is something that you just have to learn to find every day no matter what circumstances we are given. I don't think it's realistic to have your ability to be happy depend on graduating from a good school or getting a good job. It's so easy for us to say, "I'll be happy when I find my spouse, when I have clear skin.." but we shouldn't need to meet a certain goal to just be happy. Although it's difficult to do, I find my happiness by accepting the place I am in now and the progress I am making even if it's not what I want, but not letting that take away from my own right to be happy and enjoy my life.
ReplyDelete