Finding joy in what is sounds like an easy task, but let’s be honest with ourselves, sometimes, that’s one of the hardest things anyone can ask us to do.
We are people who are built to want more. We crave instant gratification. We want things to look perfect from the outside, even if on the inside, they are far from it.
The more places we visit, the easier it becomes to think that that place is better than where we’re from. The more foods we try, the more we find ourselves saying that this food is better than the foods that we’re used to eating.
While some people are able to embrace the reality that the grass is not always greener without much conscious effort, many of us default to the philosophy that the grass is always greener and as a result, we keep seeking more, more, more.
If it’s not obvious, I am one of those people that struggles. I know that the grass isn’t always greener, I know it. But just because I have that knowledge doesn’t mean it’s always easy to embrace it.
Something that’s helped me in shifting my perspective is Mark Manson’s book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.
This book changed my life in so many ways, but I bring it up right now for one very specific reason: Chapter 8, The Importance of Saying No.
In this chapter, Manson discusses commitment and the liberation that comes with truly committing to something. While most people view commitment as something that is restraining, he discusses it as being something that is actually liberating.
He points out that it is only when you truly allow yourself to commit to something that you are able to truly know and embrace that thing. If you are always chasing more, you take the opportunity away from yourself to actually see if you like that thing or that person; it is only when you fully commit to it that you give yourself the chance to fully absorb it.
When I read this, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
I have never, not once in my life, categorized myself as someone afraid of commitment. But the more I read, the more I started to feel like commitment is something that might have scared me.
A point that Manson makes is that that we feel a need to find certainty and perfection, but when we are overloaded with options and opportunities, we can experience a type of anxiety. As a result, many of us refuse to choose; instead, we choose to keep our options open. This is us avoiding commitment, which then leads to unhappiness.
At first, I only related to the idea of not choosing, but then I took a deeper look at my life and my decisions.
Since the moment I began understanding that I didn’t have to stay in my hometown or home state forever, I decided I wanted to move. I always said I was going to move to Los Angeles. For a little while, I thought maybe Madrid. Then I decided it could be Covington, Georgia. Then I decided that no, it had to be LA.
From that moment on, I planned every aspect of my life around this desire to move. I viewed my jobs as temporary. I didn’t take advantage of the sights and restaurants in my area. To an extent, I even let my relationships fall victim to this desire to move, to this belief that things are fleeting.
But reading this chapter of Mark Manson’s book made me realize how much of a disservice I was doing to myself.
I’ve loved every job I’ve ever had, but never once did I allow myself to believe they would be long lasting.
Coaching gymnastics was a high school job. Painting at the wood shop was my school break job. The hotel was a way to make some extra cash in college, and even though I loved every moment of this job and three years later I STILL wish I could go back, I never, ever saw myself staying there forever.
And when I got the job I have now, even though I loved it, my plan was always to move out of state. As a result, I found myself getting frustrated with little things here, but no matter how frustrated I let myself get, it never mattered too much because I wasn’t planing to stay forever. But then one year turned into two and was leading toward three and I still had no plans to leave, but I was still not one hundred percent happy.
That’s when I read the book, last year. That’s when I took a step back and finally allowed myself to see that it wasn’t that my job was imperfect at all, it was that I was making it imperfect. I wasn’t allowing myself to genuinely enjoy the work or the people or the time because I wasn’t letting myself be fully present.
I wasn’t allowing myself to make connections or really even know what could be, because deep down, I didn’t feel like I knew what the point was. If I wasn’t going to stay, why make the connections?
This really got me thinking. Even if I didn’t stay, why rob myself of the amazing experiences and connections I could make while I was here?
I started taking a look at other aspects of my life too. I was notorious for saying there is nothing to do in Massachusetts, I was always claiming there were no good restaurants here, I was always comparing what I could to here to the “hundreds” of things I could do there.
I don’t want to dive too deep into my love life, but there were several times throughout my college years were I said ‘Well, I have to be single to do this,’ – this being travel to Europe, this being working on a cruise ship (because yes, one of my other dreams was to work on a cruise ship) – that I ended up stressing myself out thinking that I couldn’t form a genuine connection with someone because what if it ruined my plans for the future? Instead of making a choice to get the job or take the trip, I didn’t make any choice at all and kept just talking about the what ifs.
I don’t want to be that person anymore and I don’t think I am that person anymore.
I was fleeing. Anytime something happened here that I didn’t like, my gut reaction was to book a flight and leave for a little while. It resulted in tons of fun experiences, but it didn’t fix anything, and I didn’t see that at the time. But I don’t want to be that person that runs anymore.
This winter and now well into the summer, I started strengthening the bonds I’d made. I started diving headfirst into my work and taking on projects I hadn’t been interested in before. I started trying new restaurants and instead of walking past store fronts I’d walked past all my life, I started going in. I started branching out and making new friends. I realized that we really do have good food here and fun activities, I just have to allow myself to try.
I’ve always been a very happy person – I’ve never had trouble being happy when I’m on my own and I’ve done some really amazing things in my life – but I’m finally giving myself the gift of finding joy in what is.
I don’t need to run away to find happiness. I don’t need to uproot my life to find out where I want my roots to be.
I’m happy where I am. I’m happy with who I am. I’m happy with who I spend my time with and the work that I do.
Do I think I owe it to myself to at least try living in a different city for a couple of months? Sure. But I don’t need that to be happy; I’m already happy on the inside and I’m finally ready to settle down and to open myself up to sharing that happiness with someone else.
I’m not perfect and I know I still have a lot to learn and a lot of progress to make, but I hope that for any of you out there that are reading this and are feeling the same way that this helps you. And if you want more info on The Subtle Art of Giving a F*ck, check it out here.
Anchored Musings 