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What I Have Learned Thus Far

 


I’ve lived 45 years on this earth, and this is what I have learned thus far:


Buckle up buttercup. Reality is nothing like you imagined it to be. Life is full of disappointments. 

According to Webster, disappointment is the “failure to meet expectations.” I’m sorry to break it to you, but your life will most likely not look anything like your childhood hopes and dreams. Your happiness can fluctuate depending on how much disappointment you experience and how much you experience at one time. Once you discover the real secret to happiness is to not have any expectations, your journey in life becomes learning how to tamp down expectations and just enjoy moments as they happen, grateful for opportunities that come your way, allowing room in your life for them to happen.


We all have these plans of the career we want one day, to be important, make lots of money, start a family, have a great circle of friends, and all the stuff we need or want to make us happy. Then life happens, and boy does it ever happen, and it almost never happens like we planned. We have to choose over and over again to pick ourselves up by bootstraps and keep going, or not...to sometimes maybe regress or just give up when things get too tough. And things get tougher than you could ever imagine.


Here is what nobody told me twenty-five years ago.


If you are lucky enough to go to college, then you will be ultra fortunate to graduate on time, if you continue going long enough to see graduation. Then, when it is time to start your career, you are crushed by the miniscule amount of pay for the enormous amount of effort you put in, much of it, off the clock. If you are blessed enough to be spiritually and emotionally fulfilled by your work, then you will probably discover that there is so much red tape and interpersonal tap dancing that comes with the career, that it drains your cup of joy quicker than the intrinsic reward of the work can fill it. You will have to either find a different path before you burn out or try to move up the ladder and hope for more enjoyment and/or income. Often this means more education, and if you are a college nerd like me, that means going back for more punishment. Handing over thousands upon thousands of dollars for that Masters, some now, and some for years and years to come. Long after the original job you wanted is no longer bringing you the happiness you envisioned, the university will still be getting your cash. If you never finished, those payments will sting 10 times harder because you never got any real return on your investment. You will work hard, and when that doesn’t seem to pay off, you will work harder, you will learn more, you will make more, you will move up. So it eventually works out, right?


What about your love life? While you will have a lot of love...the person you trust the most will hurt you, deeply. The person you thought was the love of your life might turn out to be a real douchebag, pardon my French, and since you planned your entire life around them, you might have to figure out what that looks like without them. You think you are going to marry someone and live happily ever after. And then you don’t. Because life isn’t a fairy tale. Hell, it isn’t even a rom-com. Even if you are somehow magically compatible with someone for life, you will disappoint each other over and over again because you are both imperfect and figuring it out as you go, trying to work through all the crap that messed you up before you ever met each other.  At some point, a huge life-changing event will send your paradigm shifting uncontrollably and alter your life perspective, possibly even your personality, forever. You might lose one or all of the things that give your life its current value: your job, your money, your partner, your home, your family, your appearance, or your health. You could have a major health scare or health crisis, and if not you, someone close to you, something that causes you to examine your own mortality, and what is really important in life. You will self-reflect and re-examine your life from the eyes of those who will remember you, not just in terms of “success”, what had driven you before your life changing event, but for who you are. You will start to ponder your legacy, and what will be left of you when the only thing physically left of you is your memory. At some point, you will probably have some sort of mid-life crisis. You will wonder who you are, and do you even know yourself? Or are you just going through life living to make everybody else happy with your decisions. 


It is impossible to avoid disappointment in life, but you can be happier by adjusting your expectations. Work to enjoy what you do. Live below your means, so that money does not control you. Be authentic and have relationships with people who love you for being your crazy self just as you are. Nothing lasts forever so enjoy every single moment, every experience, every person while they are in your life, because they are a gift and not guaranteed one second longer. 


There is an old saying, “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” Adopt that motto. Live by it. Appreciate what comes, and let it go when it is time.


At some point you will hopefully come to the place where you care how people feel but not what they think. I have to admit that I’m not there yet. I’ve never had issues with the former, but an overwhelming burden with the latter. I’ve come a long way baby, but still so far to go, and time is getting shorter every day. In the last 12 years, I have lost my health, my career, my marriage(s), and my family. All of those goals I set for myself 25 years ago have been met, exceeded, or disastrously failed and lost, and have to be reexamined, because what was once important might no longer be.


After 45 years, and a lot of road bumps,  I’ve reflected and rewritten my goals for life:


  1. Do what brings YOU joy, as you are the only one living YOUR life.

  2. Don’t let anyone steal YOUR joy. 

  3. Spread your joy to others in the form of laughter and LOVE.


I’m not speaking at any graduations anytime soon, and despite how dark of a tone this essay took, it really is about optimism...not about life being perfect, but about it being an adventure. Enjoy yours every day, and thank you for allowing me to tag along as a companion in yours.


I love you. Thank you for being in my life and making it better.

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