This question just may be solely responsible for the position I find myself in today. I think that's truly what it boils down to. I had an epiphany, and the rest is history.
Through all the questioning and all the worry, there's always been one very sad central question nagging at me... "Why can't I just be happy?" What's really sad is that somehow that wasn't a giant flashing neon sign for me, telling me to run the other way. And do you know why it wasn't? Because this crazy culture we live in has us all convinced that we're not supposed to be happy, particularly at this stage of our lives. We're supposed to be working hard - we can't just run around making the choices that make us happy! Where would that get us?! We're conditioned to believe that choosing happiness is irresponsible. Choosing the more difficult path is always praised and encouraged. Prioritizing one's own happiness above achievement seems like selling oneself short - like if there's an opportunity to be seized, an achievement to be achieved, we owe it to ourselves to go after it.
Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t any value in choosing a more difficult path. Of course there is. But why doesn’t it ever occur to us that maybe we owe it to ourselves to “go after” what makes us happy, too… that maybe our present happiness in this all-too-short existence counts for something? Apparently, happiness is supposed to come last. Or, as my astute brother in law put it, happiness is perceived as a “destination”. We make choices based on what we believe will eventually make us happy, with little regard for what makes us happy today. We’re so concerned with the possibility of future regret if we let any opportunity “pass us by” that we make choices out of fear – we don’t want to regret it later, so we’d better carpe diem and go for it today. Even if it sucks for now, “it’ll pay off someday” (UGH. If I had a dime for every time I heard that one). But what if happiness as a destination is just a mirage... something we're constantly grasping toward, but never find? What if, in the process of "securing" future happiness, we neglect our present happiness only to find out that the future happiness we were storing up was just an illusion? Then we've just lived one long, unhappy life.
I never quite "got" that until I received a message from my very wise brother in law the other day. None of it had ever really occurred to me before (at least never with such clarity!). Aware of my internal struggle over whether to continue with medical school, he was concerned about me and offered some out-of-the-blue counsel that is turning out to be rather life-changing. The bottom line was this:
"You alone are responsible for your own happiness."
Of course I never expected that anyone else was responsible for my happiness. That’s not the point. The point is that my life and my happiness are mine alone – it’s up to me to decide what it is that makes me happy. No one else can figure that out for me. And once I’ve figured that out (as best I know how), it’s up to me and me alone to decide whether or not to pursue whatever that is. And once I’ve made that decision, it will always be mine to live with for the rest of my life. No one else has to wake up every morning and live with that decision, except maybe my husband, but even he doesn’t have to live with it in the same sense that I do. So at the end of the day, regardless of how anyone else might feel about them, I have to be sure that the decisions I’ve made are ones that I can live with. If the decisions that make me happy can make the people I love happy too, that’s an added bonus, but it can’t be the goal of my decision making.
I’ve allowed so many external influences to shape my decisions for so long. I guess that’s a natural part of life. As hard as we may try, we can’t remove ourselves from the context of our world – our families, our friends, our life experiences… they all shape our decision making to some degree. But what I’m finding is that it is possible – with a little careful introspection – to begin to see where certain pressures and preconceptions originate, and to determine whether those influences have a legitimate place in our decision making processes. Sometimes even the internal influences aren’t exactly constructive. I’m finding that so many of the decisions I’ve made are rooted in this conceptualized version of myself that exists in my mind. I have always seen myself as someone who excels academically, and has always aimed high. I often harbor unrealistic expectations for myself and I hold myself to a high standard of achievement. I suppose that’s not a bad thing. But what I’m beginning to realize is that my priorities have shifted to new territory, and I haven’t yet figured out how to re-define my high expectations or my standard of achievement within this new context.
I’ve only ever known the pursuit of academics, which lends itself to a concrete set of goals and expectations. Good grades, awards and honors, degrees… But how does one define success in wife-dom? In motherhood? As my priorities shift toward family life I find that my desire to achieve and excel is shifting to the context of family life as well, but it’s uncharted territory for me. There are no concrete goals, no checklists for success. For so long I’ve been simply sticking with what I know – pursuing academic success and hoping (slash assuming) that my family life will work itself out. But these days, that’s beginning to feel a little backward to me. Maybe A LOT backward. I’m feeling much more inclined to let my academic/career life “work itself out” in favor of actively pursuing, planning, and pouring myself into building the family I’ve always dreamed of having.
This is a tough spot in which to find oneself, because realistically this is the time for me to choose a career path and complete whatever training that path requires. But now I suddenly see clearly the error I’ve been committing in telling myself that that means I have to ignore the giant elephant in the room (“giant elephant” = my overwhelming desire to have a family and to devote myself to my children and to care for them and raise them a certain way and I could go on forever but I’ll spare you) in favor of pursuing a career unencumbered. If I spend these formative years of my young adult life trying desperately to ignore those deep-seated and all-consuming desires of mine, I’m liable to end up building a life for myself in which pursuing those dreams becomes very difficult, if not nearly impossible. Building a heavily career-based foundation for a future that (I hope and pray and desire) will be largely family-based seems ill-advised, don’t you think? The world has had me convinced that I have to ignore my concerns about home life so that I don’t destroy my career potential. Shove that stuff to the back burner until you get your career situated, then (and only then) you can start worrying about family. But frankly, if we’re being honest here, I’ll tell life where it can shove all that ‘career’ garbage if it thinks it’s gonna come in here and derail my plans for my family! The worst disappointment and unhappiness I can imagine for myself, as far as a career is concerned, is if my career significantly hindered my ability to raise and care for my family the way I want to. I’d just as soon never have a career at all if it would spare me that. That’s just the truth of how I feel, deep down to my core, when it comes to career life vs. family life – take it or leave it, call me short-sighted or naïve or whatever else comes to mind, but that’s how I feel. And from where I sit today, those feelings are all I have to go on. To assume they’ll change one day is to set myself up for a boatload of future heartache, which seems rather counter-productive if the goal is “securing future happiness” (which is what I’ve always convinced myself I was doing… hmmm).
Happiness. Future happiness, present happiness, past happiness. Which matters most? THEY ALL MATTER MOST. This timeline within which I’ll live out my life is all I’ve got, and it’s up to me and me alone to pack it as full of joy and peace and (here comes that word again) happiness as I can manage. I can’t change the past, but I can affect my present happiness, and I can make choices that I believe will propagate that happiness into my future. I am the only person on this planet who truly understands the desires of my heart, and the only person who truly understands what happiness means for me. Happiness is a fluid, nebulous concept that takes different shapes in different lives, and so my happiness, my mom’s happiness, my school counselor’s happiness, my boss’s happiness, my friend’s happiness… these may all be radically different concepts. Happiness is a very personal endeavor, and it’s not always easy. Choosing happiness doesn’t mean choosing what feels good in the moment or what makes life easier now – it means making decisions that bring you peace. When the decision is made and that new resultant path unfolds in front of you, does it bring a smile to your face?
Today, while I still have the flexibility and freedom to choose my own path, I want to choose happiness. I want to be a little selfish, figure out what it is that brings me joy in this world, and lay my life’s foundation on those things. I want to focus on my heart and my gut, and confidently stake my future happiness on what I feel. Seeking advice and wise counsel from those who love you can be very helpful, but ultimately my happiness is mine and mine alone – no one else has to understand it or believe in it. The goal is not to forget about “using my head” altogether, but to stop discounting the little jerks and tugs of my heart as I’ve often done in the past. Logic and reason are wonderful tools, but there’s just no formula for a joyful life. At the end of the day, when all the weighing and all the pondering and all the deliberating is over, that old cliché about “following your heart” becomes an unavoidable truth.
