I’m in a weird transitional phase of my life right now.
I graduated college last spring, but I don’t quite feel like an adult. I have a full time job, I pay my own car insurance, and the mail that gets sent to me is more scary-looking-bills than fun, colorful magazine covers. But everyone around me seems to have so much more figured out than I do. I don’t understand how to file taxes. I google car problems to see if I can hold off finding a repairman until my next paycheck. My cooking skills are limited to various kinds of stir-fry.
I feel like somewhere along the line I missed a class: “How to be a Functional Adult 101”.
And everyone always seems to have advice to be giving me.
“You should apply for this job, I bet you’d love it.”
“Get your insurance through this company, they’re way cheaper.”
“Have you thought about going back to school? You’d be a great lawyer!”
It’s exhausting.
While I appreciate helpful advice from people I care about, it sometimes feels like everyone in my life is trying to tell me who I should be, without first asking me who I want to be. Sometimes I want to make these mistakes for myself. Sometimes I want to try and fail and try again.
One day, not too long after my spontaneous cross-country move, I opened my grandmother’s kitchen cabinet and noticed, for the first time, a quote she had cut from a magazine and taped to the inside.
“Do more of what makes you happy.”
I can’t tell you how long I stared at those words. Something so unbelievablysimple just stopped me in my tracks.
I realized, then, that it didn’t matter that I don’t have everything figured out yet. It didn’t matter if I never figured it all out.
You don’t need to have a perfect life.
You don’t need a fancy job, or a big house, or the most expensive car.
All you need is to do things that make you happy. To do things to bring a little bit of joy to the world each and every day. To embrace life. To figure out what makes you happy and just do it.
So, what about you?
What makes you happy?
