You can change your life at any time. You can live any life that you want to live. Live them all.
When we are young, we are forced to decide what we want to do. 18 years old, fresh out of high school, we have to answer the question, “what are you going to do with the next 50 years of your life? How are you going to change and contribute to our world.” What do you answer to these questions if you have no idea? What if you want to be a doctor, an actor, an artist, a photographer, a dentist, police officer, stunt coordinator, director, teacher, CEO, politician, president? What do you answer for the ever-important question of WHAT are you going to do with your life.
You answer, “I’m going to find happiness.”
I think everyone has their own specific definition of happiness, whether it be the yellow paint that Vincent Van Gogh swallowed in order to make himself feel happy, or the butterflies that are released in your stomach when you smile, or a feeling of being on top of the world, too elated to feel like you’ll ever come back to earth. I’m still developing my own personal definition of happiness, but mine is spanning from doing something that I love, so that when I go to work, I’m in love with my surroundings and the skill that I am performing. Happiness is waking up ready to face the day, and smiling with anticipation on all of the amazing sights and sounds I will experience that day. Happiness is laughing so hard I can no longer breathe, it is accepting myself for who I am no matter what I want to do with my life.
Right now, I have a vague idea of what I want to do with my life, but I am a young adult, and I do not know for sure what the rest of my life will bring nor do I have a definitive career path. But for now, I am defining happy. I am defining happy so that I can mold my life around it. If you don’t know what to do with your life right now, that is okay. Define happy for yourself. Find what makes you rise to the top of the world so elated that you don’t ever want to come back to earth. Find that and mold your life around it. Find your happy and make it work for you. If one day you wake up dreading every second of going to work that day and you find yourself no longer enjoying that work, redefine your life. Find something that is so awesome and spectacular you never want to let it go. Challenge yourself. Please please please never settle for anything less. You deserve the world, you deserve to find your yellow paint. You deserve to be so happy, it feels as though your heart will burst. Change your life; experience new things and find your happy.
After all, life is too short to be anything but.
