Day 258 (Two-Hundred & Fifty-Eight) of 365 days

Hey Friend. What do you want out of life? Do you have your future all figured out? If you’re anything like me it always seems like all of the people around me have life all figured out, except for me. The plain and simple truth is that’s not the case. But we’ll get to that in a moment. We always think other people have all of the answers and have everything figured out. That’s simply not true.

Someone may give you the impression that they have it all figured out, but they likely don’t. You never know what goes on behind the scenes. People often don’t want you to know about the messy middle, so they simply won’t tell you. Some people will always pretend like everything is perfect even when it isn’t. In addition, you don’t know what it took for someone to get to where they are. They could be working so hard at home and you would never know how much time and energy was put into it. Maybe it seemed like an easy win, but it may not have been. It’s kind of like when people become famous. They have been working hard for 10-15 years and all of a sudden, they’re an overnight success. Nobody noticed the 10 years of hard work they did before that.

This goes for other aspects of life as well. You might catch yourself in possession of a hopeless or nonexistent love life. When we’re single it’s easy to spot all of the happy relationships and feel envious of those couples. It can cause you to question why you’re not involved with anyone, or even currently being sought after. Then it’ll seem as if even the other girlfriend/boyfriend-less folks are better at being single than you are. They mingle, they have fun, they date – but there you are, eating solo lunches and having a relatively empty text message inbox. You’ll wonder what everyone else is doing that you aren’t, and what qualities you’re missing. The thing is, it’s rarely what it seems and even if it were – you can’t control it. There’s no surefire way to make people want to date you. However, it’ll certainly help to quit actively seeking love instead of making individual improvements your focal point. Perhaps self-progress will lead to more attention from the ones you’re longing for.

I’d also venture the guess that even the Figured Out People – those clever souls who’ve got passive income streams and webinars and autoresponder sets – have their moments of doubt. When we’re young, we are often encouraged to consider the same common careers such as being a police officer, firefighter, doctor, lawyer, or teacher. Then in high school, we feel pressure to decide because we’ll have to major in something in college. We may love music, writing, or something that people associate with struggle, only to get bombarded by advice to do something that will make money. People constantly ask us what we are going to do with our lives. The pressure on all of us is huge.

Everyone goes through a moment of doubt. I have started and abandoned a gazillion projects so much that I almost tagged myself a slacker. I have found myself wallowing in self-pity, confused about the next steps. Do I let myself fall into the “I-am-confused” trap? Nope! I acknowledge the fact that I get confused sometimes but I choose not to live confused. I choose to celebrate small victories. I am far from where I want to be but I am happy with where I am today. While you are here wallowing in self-pity and beating yourself up, someone else is envious of your life and where you are. Inside life (**smh**). I choose to see these moments of doubt as opportunities to learn and explore, I choose to be more open-minded and be whatever I want without fear of being judged by anyone.

Here’s the truth: nobody has life all figured out. The older I get, the more certain I am that nobody ever comes near fully understanding it. If someone did, what would be the point? We wouldn’t appreciate the finer things without having experienced some of the less joyful times. The key is to remember that. To make certain that we’re well aware of everyone else’s downfalls. Nobody has it perfect, and in all likelihood, someone’s got it far worse than you currently do. Regardless of our situation, good or bad – rest assured that nobody has it figured out.