Feeling like a mess, so just letting myself talk

I don’t know what I’m going to write right now.

Every time I go to do a blog post, I have a clear plan. Over the past couple weeks, I had a bunch of solid story ideas that I started working on, but I couldn’t finish them because I felt like I just wanted to vent or something. I don’t even know about what, but I’m just going to let myself do that now. So, please bear with the messiness, because I’m just going to see what happens.

I’ve been feeling shitty over the past couple of weeks.

A big part of that is because I’ve been freaking out about work. I am currently in a contract position that ends in September. So, I’ve been looking for jobs that I can do once this one is over.

In looking for jobs I’ve been feeling… hmm. I don’t know what the word is. Scared? Empty? Alone?

What if I don’t find something and I’m broke and living with my parents forever? What if I do find something and I don’t feel fulfilled in it?

To be honest, the latter scares me much, much more.

For my whole life, I’ve put so much weight on my career, because I want to love it. This may come as a surprise to people considering how much I love boybands and rom coms, but I’ve spent much more time daydreaming about my dream career than I have my dream man.

We spend 40 hours a week at work. That’s the majority of our waking life. That’s more time than we spend doing anything else. That’s more interaction with our colleagues than with our spouses, friends, and family.

Considering that, I want to love what I do. Not like. Love.

When I say that though, people tell me that my expectations are too high.

“Most people don’t love their job.” “Most people don’t want to go to work.” “Most people hate Mondays and look forward to Fridays and 5 p.m. That’s normal.”

With all due respect, if wishing away five days of a seven-day week is normal, I don’t want to be normal.

(I must point out that I am speaking for myself here. If the above is what your life is like, that is perfect as long as you are happy and you are feeling good. I acknowledge that everyone is different and that is a great thing. I just want everyone to be doing whatever it is that feels right to themselves.)

I know that I can’t be ecstatic every second of the day, and I know that I can’t even be happy every second of the day. But overall, I want to feel like I’m living my life as fully as possible, and that I won’t have regrets at the end of it all.

K, I’m about to get weird, but here’s something I often think about…

You go to school at age 3 or 4. You get praise if you get good grades in elementary school because that means that you’ll do well in high school. And if you get good grades in high school, that’s great because then you can get into a good university. And if you get in and do well in a good university, that’s awesome because now you’ll be able to get a job that pays lots of money.

It’s like we’ve been bred since we were toddlers to aspire to make money.

Is this an exaggeration? Maybe. And I’m sure that not everyone’s situations are this one-sided. But in my personal experience, I know that I was asked about my grades and future job title way, way more frequently than I was asked what path would make me happy.

Yes, you need money to live, but shouldn’t happiness be more important than grades and money? Shouldn’t we be telling our kids to explore careers they think will make them feel fulfilled, over jobs that will make them lots of money? Wouldn’t it be nicer to talk about how happy our kids are, rather than how prestigious their jobs are?

As a former straight-A student, I was celebrated for my grades and praised when I said that I wanted to be a doctor. (Even though the thought of broken bones makes me want to vomit, and have you seen me in an emergency situation? It’s not good.)

But when I said the things that I actually wanted to do—be a Disney Channel star, be a journalist, be like Celine Dion, be a blogger—I was told to be more realistic. (Umm, like becoming an MD is realistic… Getting into med school is hard AF.)

I feel like I’ve lived my life conflicted between trying to satisfy society’s and my family’s wants for me, and the wants that I’ve had for myself. And now, especially with my current job coming to an end, I’m not even fully clear on what it is exactly that I see myself doing. Or maybe deep down I do know what I want, but in being too concerned about what other people think, I’ve altered my goals so that they’re more easily digestible for people—I don’t want people to not only think that my expectations are too high, but to also think that my goals are just too out there.

Some days, I can feel myself giving in to the negative people around me.

I can feel myself thinking, “If I screw the idea of trying to find or create a career that I love, and I just take the highest paying job I can get where the day-to-day is decent, then I could make that work. I’d be able to buy things, like a house. And hopefully I’d find a husband whom I could enjoy on my spare time. That would be OK.”

Sure, that all sounds fine and successful by society’s standards. And I recognize that it’s my privileged upbringing that allows me even want more than that in the first place. But, for me, there are a few things wrong with that scenario:

1. I don’t want money and the shit I can buy to be the driving force in my life;

2. I don’t want to count on a guy to make everything OK; and

3. I just can’t help it. I want to love that huge chunk of my life that I will be spending making a living.

Frig, it really gets me angry when I’m told that I’m being unrealistic and that I should settle. Like, if no one had big goals, we wouldn’t have anything. There’d be no restaurants. There’d be no cars. There’d be no books. That chair you’re sitting on, the clothes you’re wearing, the phone you’re looking at? If it weren’t for people who had the audacity to think that they could create something new or be something different or try something people thought was crazy, our world would be missing out on so, so much.

Does anything I just blurted out make sense to anyone?

God, I hate to sound like I’m at all ungrateful, because I do feel like I’ve largely won the lottery as far as the life I’ve been born into. But, I guess this is just what I’ve been feeling inside. I also hate to sound as though people who have more humble goals are wrong. I feel like everyone’s wants are valid—unless you want to hurt people. I just want everyone—with big dreams, small dreams, no dreams, whatever—to overall feel happy and fulfilled in their lives, whatever that looks like to them. And I think that we should all encourage that for others and for ourselves.

Man, mid-twenties are weird. Some weeks I’m so good and I’m telling myself that I’m all “happy now” and shit. And I’m posting on my blog regularly, practicing longboarding, whitening my teeth, putting money into my savings account, and it’s all good.

Other weeks (this week and last) I hear and believe people who tell me that I’m being unrealistic, and I let it get me down. I think that there’s no way that I’ll make a life where I look forward to the way that I make my money. I don’t post on my blog because all I can think is that no one cares, so what’s the point? I take naps instead of getting outside. I pick my blackheads until my face looks like a pizza. I let my Visa bill get bigger than my chequing account (defs not proud of that one). I just feel like a mess.

Anyway. I can’t end off by being so negative. Now that I’ve had my vent, here’s what I need to do:

1. Listen to myself. I’ve spent so much time asking everyone for their opinions and just doing what they think, so much that I don’t even know what I think. I’m 26 and smart. Now I just need to plug my ears, trust myself, and be a little selfish, because I don’t want to come to the end of my life and realize that I was living someone else’s idea of what my life should be. It’s my life and I’m living it every day, so people’s comments and opinions need to play less of a role in how I’m spending my hours.

2. Keep doing stuff. I gotta keep blogging, keep looking for jobs, keep moving. Because doing shit and learning from the fails and successes will bring me closer to whatever it is that I’m supposed to be doing. Sitting and overthinking will not.

3. Be grateful and stop complaining. This is a big one for me. I’m glad I got my rant out, but now I gotta move forward and work hard, while also recognizing that I’m so lucky and blessed. (I live in Canada, so I’m in the top 90 something per cent of blessedness in this world!) Do I want more in life? Yes. It’s just who I am. But, what I have now is really wonderful, too.

If you’ve made it to the end, I thank you for taking this all in. And I thank you for being interested in what I have to say at all. It means a lot, and I hope that someone is getting something out of what I have to say!

I hope you do what makes you happy, whether that’s tackling obnoxiously large goals or chilling and being easygoing. Either way, I hope that you just b urself.