This past semester has been entirely freeing and all together soul finding. I realize that’s not really a term, but I’ve really come into myself, and it had nothing to do with my classes, in fact, I’m not a hundred percent sure what triggered it. All I know is that I’ve figured out my passions, I’ve sorted out my goals, and I’ve learned what makes me happy.

Honestly I think the key to happiness isn’t as hard as people try to make it, but it’s a process. It has a lot to do with the people around you, the way you spend your time, and what you do with your livelihood. It’s something we all have to figure out, a kind of self awareness that won’t come to us until we’re ready. I’m early on this boat, from what I can tell. Many of my friends are lost in the process of being an adult in their early twenties, thinking about rules, careers, and long term choices which they might find to be short term after all. We’re trying to hard and we’re not trying hard enough.

Let me elaborate. We come up with an idea when were younger, whether it be in 6th grade or 11th, that this is what we want out of life, that this is what success looks like. Sometimes it has to do with money, other times it has to do with how many cities we can visit before we die, but it’s always restrictive in someway or another, because once we have it we only have the one path, and when that path ends up being a grown over once we start down it, well, that’s when the problems start. It’s been coined the quarter life crisis. The “what the hell am I doing with my life?!”. It’s in this way that we’re trying to hard. People like blaming society for this, but in reality we form all our opinions, so while it’s been influenced by the “american dream” and the successes and failure stories our parents raised us on, it ends up on our shoulders. Only we can stop trying to reach our ideal idea of success. You need to lose it, throw it to the side.

When I said we aren’t trying enough I was referring to our generations constant downplaying of themselves. The “I can’t achieve that” or “I’m not good enough”. We pigeonhole ourselves by downplaying our abilities, our talents. Or, by thinking our abilities and talents are good enough when they come to our idea of the perfect success.

It’s a constant, we forget that nothing is permanent, not money, jobs, even relationships. Though I’m not knocking the idea of a soul mate here, I believe in love and that they can last for a lifetime. But people die. We retire or get fired. Money means nothing when your in the ground. You don’t know how nice of a coffin your is. People travel the world on a dime.

Now, happiness is knowing what makes you happy. Saying that we all nod, because we all know what makes us happy, chocolate and college basketball, but we have to go one past that, we have to force ourselves to do the things we enjoy when we don’t feel like doing anything, and we have to above all, remove the pressure. If you’re constantly looking for happiness your not ever going to find enough for your liking. It’s when you start learning to be content in the ups and downs. Life’s a cycle of ups and downs, we need the downs to appreciate the ups and we need the downs to teach us the hard lessons. Neither the ups or downs are permanent. You have to learn how to live with life as it comes, not as you imagine it.

I guess learning how to be happy has a lot with accepting that life will never fit into our ideals, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be damn amazing. Learn what makes you happy and do it. Learn all you can no matter were you are learning, and force yourself to do what you love most, even if you don’t have much time.