Yuki laying on Spike, after being at their new home for only a day or two.
After a very unusal and difficult night, I'm thinking about my life to this point, and doing alot of reflection. As thoughts fill my mind and almost overwhelm my soul, I sit and gather myself and try my hardest to steal a moment of calm. I glance around at my new environment and surroundings to see if all of this is really real. While looking about and summoning some calm, I locked eyes with my little cat Yuki. Its then that I have a bit of a useless, but conveniently distracting epiphany.
I wish I were a cat.
My cat has a happy life, and even though he just moved from his home and birthplace in the Mountains of North Carolina to the warm sun of Florida, his existence wasn't thrown into turbulence. With his move, came all the joys and needs of his life. His brother Spike, his food, playtime, cozy naps and cuddles, a warm place to roam, the same entertainment, me, and new adventures that are very appreciated because of his comfort level.
In essence, Yuki's life simply and effortlessly came with him. He hasn't really had to rearrange anything, find a job, consider working at 3:00 am to provide for himself, feel dissapointed that he can't find a job, and he most certainly isn't hundreds of miles away from something irreplaceable, rare and special.
He isn't far away from someone he loves.
I wish that my life could adjust as easily as my cat's, and that my only stressors were new cats, a Bulldog named Jazz, my owner forgetting to leave the window open, leading to a stinky poop in her closet, and did I mention Jazz?
This is Jazz. She is a cat's worst nightmare.I wish that like my cat, I could always have the same warm eyes to look into that made me feel at home.
I wish that I could somehow have brought all my joys with me.
I wish that I wasn't so far away from someone I love.
I wish that I could simply, truly enjoy the here and now.
The truth is, this week I have been very stressed out. I'm a bit worried, and so far, not as happy as I thought I would be.
I miss someone near and dear to me, and the comfort they provided to me in situations like this. So why is life so hard? Why am I always trying to figure things out, find a decent job...etc, etc. I don't really know.
Maybe in my search for "happiness" I haven't looked hard enough, or more than likely in a once fantastical view of life, overlooked too much. So I'm asking myself now, what has made me happy from now retrospectively?
Writing, laughing, new friends, new family, hobbies, creativity, a personal bond and connection with someone, cooking, giving gifts and love, being a nurturing and caring person... and really, some of the little things in life.
So where does that leave me? Thus far, it brings me to this, a job has yet to be the golden ticket that makes me happy. All the time in my youth that I spent obsessing about a career was because I thought that an amazing, adventurous, creativity filled career would be the bain of my existence.I always thought that I would be another Oprah; that I'd have a great job, and that's all I needed. Everything else would just come in second.
In having that attitude, and in my ferocious hunt for a top notch career and a flashy life that would fill pages in history books, I've missed out on some things. I missed out on living. I ignored jobs that very well could have made me happy and didn't always appreciate those around me as much as I should have.
As I'm getting older, and more importantly growing as a person I'm realizing that I'm not going to be the Indiana Jones of employment, or better yet the Indiana Jones of life.
I'm not going to wear blinders and only go for a career because it looks golden, because its rare, dangerous, adventurous, comes with pride and prestige and attracts the oohs and ahhs of passers by. I'm realizing that I may not have a career that puts my name in lights, gets my hands next to a star, or has people loving me that don't even know me, but none of that matters.
I'd rather have more control over my destiny, have more control over my life, and cherish the love of those who know me well.
So where did I go wrong? I chose a degree based on dreams, fantasy, and even a little envy (without much respect paid to reality.)
I'm not saying not to dream big, but what I am saying is, make sure that what you're going for is truly a passion for the right reasons, and that you're prepared to do anything to get it.
Don't choose a career to try to create your happiness in life, find happiness in things that you can choose and control. I spent alot of time blinded because I was searching for something huge, something bigger than life. I now know that I don't need the life of Oprah Winfrey to find the path to contentment, and that in going for that life, I was limiting myself and not allowing anything else but my fantasical goals to make me "happy".
So I plan to change my life. I'm going to go back to school. I'm going to do some soul-searching. I'm going to wake up and take off these 20-year-old blinders. I'm going to find a job and a career that will be a part of my happiness, that will go with who I am. I'm no longer going to place my happiness in the hands of someone in a human rescource department. I'm no longer going going to be defined by the job that I get. A few years ago, I told a family member about a dream where I finally got the job that changed my life; and how the dream made me so happy. He said something to me, that at the time, I found ridiculous. He said, I think you're supposed to try to find happiness first, not a job and then happiness.
Suddenly now, it all makes sense.
My life is a journey, and I'm no longer trying to find the "perfect" place or the "perfect" job, I'm trying to find me.
Oh and p.s., I've changed my mind about the cat thing.
I might not have been able to bring all my joys and loved ones with me, but unlike a cat, who has no control over his destiny, I still have my joys and loved ones, no matter how far away.
Charlotte.
