There comes a point in adulthood when you look around at your own life and realize just how much of it was built from other people’s expectations. Parents, partners, coworkers, even strangers on the internet all seem to carry opinions about what a “good” life should look like whether that’s the classic white picket fence and 2 kids, jetting around the world or having that corner office. With the shorter days and colder nights which entice us to stay inside sipping a warm cup of tea, December has a way of handing us a quiet pause in the middle of all that noise. In that stillness you can ask a gentler and more liberating question: What if the best gift you give yourself this year is a life that actually fits you? Not a life you are supposed to want. Not a life that earns gold stars. A life that feels like home when you step into it.
Most of us carry at least a few pieces of life that no longer fit. A commitment you keep out of habit. A routine that once served you but now drains you. A goal you set years ago that you are still dragging around even though it no longer reflects who you are. Just like clothes that shrink in the dryer, some roles tighten over time until they restrict your movement. One of the most compassionate things you can do for yourself is to notice what feels constricting. If something consistently brings dread or resentment, it deserves a second look.
Try asking yourself: What do I continue to do only because I feel I should? What parts of my week feel like a performance? What drains me more than it fills me? These small gut checks can reveal more truth than grand resolutions ever will. Because often resolutions are about adding things to our lives when maybe we should be asking what isn’t serving us anymore.
Wanting something different for your life can feel almost rebellious. We are taught early that desire is selfish or impractical. Yet desire is really a compass. It points you toward what brings meaning. The permission you refuse to give yourself is often the permission you most need. You are allowed to want a simple life. You are allowed to want a bold one. You are allowed to want rest, creativity, adventure, peace or a mix of them.
Let go of the guilt around wanting something others do not understand. You do not have to justify your dream life like it is a court case. Your preferences do not require a panel of approval. They only require your honesty. After all, the only person who gets to live your life is you. They have their own.
Every person inherits a set of default settings. These can be expectations from family, cultural messages or values absorbed without question. Some defaults are helpful. Others keep you living a script that never belonged to you. December is an ideal moment to ask where those settings came from. Did you choose them or were they assigned to you? Are they aligned with who you are now or with a past version of you who no longer exists?
Letting go does not always require a dramatic overhaul. It can be as simple as replacing one outdated belief with a more generous one. It can be as quiet as deciding your worth is not measured by productivity. Sometimes the life that fits begins with subtracting what never matched your shape in the first place.
Once you clear the space, you can begin creating a life that feels right in your hands. Think of it like tailoring. Small adjustments can change everything. You might shift your morning routine to match your natural rhythm. You might redefine what rest means so it supports you instead of feeling like a guilty pleasure. You might choose relationships that nourish you instead of ones that keep you hustling for belonging.
Crafting a life that fits is not a single grand gesture. It is a set of choices made consistently. When something feels peaceful instead of performative, you are moving in the right direction.
A good life should give you room. Room to breathe. Room to change your mind. Room to fail safely. Room to explore new interests without embarrassment. If your life feels like a tight shoe, it is not a sign that you need to force yourself into it. It is a sign that you need to loosen the laces. When you prioritize a life that can expand with you, you trade perfection for sustainability. You also create conditions in which joy can actually take root instead of feeling like a visitor.
The gift of a well-fitting life is not wrapped once and placed under a tree. It is something you give yourself again and again. Through honesty. Through reflection. Through paying attention to what your life is telling you. You will outgrow some things. You will discover new ones. You will learn what brings you back to yourself. The point is not to build a life that looks impressive. The point is to build one that feels true.
As this year winds down, take a moment to appreciate the small ways you have already reshaped your life into something more authentic. And if you have not started yet, that is all right. The gift is not in the timing. The gift is in choosing yourself.
I know, dear reader, this might be the last place you’d expect to find a defense of boredom. After all, many of you probably clicked here to escape boredom, not embrace it. I may even be digging my own blogging grave by suggesting you spend less time scrolling and more time staring at your ceiling. But this space was never meant to trap you for hours. Its intention has always been to help you live a fuller, more mindful life, without breaking the bank.
As someone with ADHD, the idea of boredom used to feel impossible. Tedium was my sworn enemy. Yet I’ve come to realize that boredom is a rare luxury these days. With our phones glued to our palms, we rarely get the stillness that allows us to simply be.
And here’s the secret: boredom isn’t the enemy. It’s the birthplace of philosophy, creativity, and growth.
Why We Need Boredom
When you’re left alone with your thoughts, they can be loud, uncomfortable, even overwhelming. But without that discomfort, how can you truly know yourself? When do you ever stop to ask:
Am I on the right path?
Are my relationships enriching or draining me?
What do I actually want out of this short, strange life?
Noise drowns out those questions. Silence, and yes, boredom, makes space for them. And while the answers might not always be pleasant, they’re necessary for meaningful growth. It’s only when we ask those questions that we begin to fully develop a meaningful life which according to some researchers may be the antidote for the crushing anxiety we’ve all been feeling. According to Harvard Professor Arthur Brooks, it is the lack of meaning that drives so much of our modern world’s anxiety and depression and boredom would be part of the cure!
Boredom also boosts creativity. When the mind wanders, it problem-solves. Einstein famously worked at the Swiss Patent Office for seven years, a job so dull it practically begs for daydreaming. Out of that monotony came some of the most groundbreaking ideas in physics. Imagine what we might uncover if we swapped YouTube shorts for a little mental white space. You may be quite shocked at what problems you solve whilst driving your car.
Finally, boredom sparks curiosity. That restless itch pushes us to seek out novelty, to wander past the familiar bend in the road. Dissatisfaction with the status quo has always been the engine of human progress. It’s what drove Columbus to set sail and spark the West’s discovery of the world. It’s what drove the Wright Brothers to the sky. It’s what made humanity ask “what is up there in the vast expanse above us?”
Some of my best ideas have come when I was bored. This very blog was born while I was gardening. Insights about my therapy clients have surfaced while I was elbow-deep in dishes. I’ve written entire stories in my head while waiting in line, or mulled over questions of faith while driving down long stretches of highway.
Boredom isn’t wasted time, it’s compost. Given space, it grows something new.
How to Reclaim It
So how do you let boredom back in? Start small.
Turn off your podcast or music while you drive or clean.
Try a tech-free meal and see what real conversation shows up.
Block out one phone-free evening a week.
Take breaks from social media, or better yet, set parental controls on yourself.
Use your phone’s Do Not Disturb mode generously (you can allow emergency calls to still come through).
Will it be fun at first? No. That’s the point. But over time, you’ll come to see boredom not as an absence but as an opening. I’ve even started protecting mine, because that mental wandering is often far richer than anything TikTok could offer.
The sun peeks through the curtains. The soft chirp of birds is among the first sounds I hear. I burrow deeper into the covers and pull my cat, Luke, in for extra snuggles. I linger in the warmth of the moment, the smell of breakfast floating through the air like a promise. It isn’t until Luke wiggles out of my arms, miffed and hungry, that I finally, reluctantly, stir.
And why should I hurry?
The day stretches out before me, gloriously unstructured. There is no checklist. No Zoom call. No tightly packed schedule to wrestle through. The world may be my oyster, but today, the only oyster I’ll be opening is a good book. This, my friend, is the gentle joy of going nowhere.
My life is full of small adventures. It’s rare for a month to pass without something noteworthy—an art fair, a botanical garden, a random road trip, or simply trying a new café across town. I like having something on the horizon. It gives shape to my days, stirs up my creativity, and helps keep the dull, dragging edge of burnout at bay.
But I’ve learned—sometimes the hard way—not to overdo it. Too much “doing” tips the scales into exhaustion. Even joy can become a chore when overscheduled. My bank account is certainly a grounding force in this, but honestly, the bigger issue is energy. Constant motion, even when enjoyable, can leave me depleted. It turns out that balance isn’t just a nice idea from a wellness podcast. It’s survival.
There’s a particular kind of luxury in staying home on purpose, not because I’m sick, not because I have chores to catch up on, but because I choose to. It’s an act of intentional stillness, of delighting in the familiar. Especially if, like me, you’ve curated your space into a personal sanctuary.
My home holds my books, my tea collection, my cats, my dog, my violin, and my garden. These are not filler items between “real” adventures. They are the adventure. These are things that remind me of who I am when no one else is watching. You may remember that many of these are on my Bucket List, and you’ll find I’m checking them off right from the comfort of my deck with a glass of wine in hand and a sunset to keep me company.
It’s a profoundly healing act to stay home and do…nothing.
In this quiet space, I can finally hear myself think. I’m not trying to wring productivity from every last second like water from a rock. I’m not chasing dopamine hits from Instagram-worthy moments. I’m just being. And in that being, I find presence. Spaciousness. Energy I didn’t know I had.
This is my rebellion against the hustle. A resistance to the noise that tells us we’re only valuable when in motion, only interesting if we’re checking off countries on a map.
Going nowhere lets you find your rhythm again. It allows you to ask, without the usual pressure, “What do I really want today?” And sometimes the answer is “absolutely nothing” in the most glorious way.
Too often, we assume the answers lie far away, on a beach in Bali, on a mountain in Switzerland, in a cottage somewhere in the Scottish Highlands. And yes, those places are beautiful. But they also come with traffic, airports, long lines, and stress. We swap one type of exhaustion for another and call it “escape.” I don’t know about you, but I often need to schedule a rest day just from traveling back from my vacation.
What if, instead of waiting for a two-week vacation to save us, we built tiny vacations into our lives regularly? What if “rest” wasn’t the reward for being good, but the foundation from which we move and make decisions?
We may simplify our lives, but have we simplified ourselves? It’s far easier to declutter your closet than to declutter your expectations. We’re so busy trying to escape our own lives, we forget that it’s possible to build one we don’t feel the need to escape from.
So today, I’m not checking in, checking bags, or checking my itinerary. I’m checking in with myself. I’m home, and that is not the consolation prize.
We all have goals and if you’re reading this blog, you probably have a long list of them like me. Things you want to do, places you want to see, milestones you want to accomplish. Some of the items on the list are more just for fun or it seems like it would be a cool thing, some are things we really do want to do and a few of them are deep, burning desires. It’s those last ones that this post is for. After all one will not obtain goals simply by sitting around awaiting the golden opportunity. As in a previous post, sometimes fate needs a little nudge in the right direction. If one is going to achieve something truly worthwhile then it stands to reason that one will be putting a significant amount of effort into the cause.
Obtaining a goal is about clarity, focus and action. It’s those first two steps that often trip people up because before one acts one ought to take time to plan, right? Maybe not or at least not how most people plan. What if we stopped asking “How” and instead started to ask “What”?
I’m stealing this piece of advice from the business world for improving our lives and meeting our goals. It takes the classic approach of obtaining goals and turns it on its head. Most people set a goal then ask the next, seemingly logical question of, how am I going to achieve that? After all that’s the problem solving approach most of us were taught. You set a goal and make a plan which is always followed by “How am I going to do it”? However, that question is a trap! It’s a question designed to take you down a path that’s ineffective and frustrating, to get you bogged down in the details. You’re bound to get yourself so tied up in knots thinking of all the reasons you can’t achieve your goal and the seemingly insurmountable barriers that the question is bound to bring up. You lose your focus and start trying to break down the goal into other sub-goals to get around the barriers which only lead to more how questions. It can also get you lost in the illusion of taking the action of “planning” rather than the action of “doing”.
What skills and resources do I have to make it happen?
What resources do I have need?
What people should I connect with?
What will keep me motivated and inspired?
What will I do to celebrate the milestones?
What will I do when I’ve obtained this goal?
It’s about shifting you from thinking about a plan to actually doing the steps which will actually take you there. There isn’t time to worry about the barriers because you’re too busy ticking off your to-do list after answering those questions. It moves the goal from a what if to a when. In the immortal words of Zig Ziglar “when obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there”.
When I set out to start checking off my list, I didn’t really focus on the how. Had I done that, I probably wouldn’t have much checked off because I would have gotten caught up in all the barriers, the cost of travel, the distance, the time, the difficulties, etc. But because I’m not focused on the how, I’ve found that I am constantly finding and stumbling upon opportunities to complete my goals. When I decided to become a therapist, I didn’t worry about the exact how but rather the what college would I go to, what major, what jobs should I apply for? It also keeps you flexible to discover a different path to your goal that you may not have realized was there before. When becoming a therapist, I had a path that I thought I would need to follow, which was to get a PhD in psychology. Instead, I ended up with a LCSW, which was a much cheaper option. Had I been too focused on the how, I would have never strayed from the original “what” to a much better fit for my goal. I have a friend whose goal is to help people in a similar way and is in the process of becoming a Life Coach.
This simple but powerful change can help you go from merely goal setting to goal achievement.
One thing that I love about my Bucket List is that I’m almost always trying new things. I recently read somewhere that research indicates that when we focus solely on the interests we’re already interested about we can miss out on entirely undiscovered aspects of ourselves. We may limit ourselves artificially without even knowing it. We may love art and never take up a paint brush or admire finely made clothes and never consider sewing.
I never thought I’d enjoy a videogame but I certainly enjoy playing World of Warcraft (I’m a nerd deal with it). I wouldn’t have thought I’d like D’n’D but as it turns out, I do enjoy collaborative storytelling. I’ve discovered I draw the line at larping which was a surprise because I would have thought I’d love dressing up and acting out the story like D’n’D after enjoying D’n’D, going to the Renaissance Faire, acting, etc., but absolutely not for me. My sister is afraid of heights but I have discovered a thrill for them. I’ve learned I like hacking down trees and the physical labor of gardening. I don’t have the patience for a lot of crafts, but I love trying to hone my skills on the violin.
We don’t even need to do them well. We can do something poorly, in fact it’s almost better to do something poorly at first. After all, if we’re good at it then we think that we have a “knack” for it and then when we inevitably come up against a hurtle, we lack the skills we need to overcome. Sometimes just doing something for the sheer thrill of doing it is the best way to learn. When we have fun we aren’t focused so much on doing it perfectly as enjoying ourselves. We’re no longer motivated by outside rewards and people pushing us to do it. We are competing against ourselves, learning our way of doing things and probably becoming better than we would have if it just came easy.
I think it’s good to explore new things that we may have dismissed when we were younger or just missed out on. I remember thinking that learning to ride a horse wasn’t something I could do, but then I spoke with a work colleague who was taking lessons bi-weekly. Another work colleague had joined a small college’s orchestra after taking up the violin again post-high school which in part inspired me to take up the instrument once again. It’s caused me to re-evaluate what I can do as an adult and that maybe I didn’t actually miss out on opportunities or that I could return to things that I did as a child. As it turned out the only person keeping the doors shut to possibilities was me.
I’ve also been pushed to try things I wouldn’t have previously thought to try like Eco-dying, water tubing, and zip-lining. I find myself saying “sure why not” when presented with new adventures and raising my hand to volunteer at public events because “why not”? It was that attitude that pushed me to rent a car in Britain. Before, I’m not sure that I would have had the confidence to drive on the opposite side of the road because I’m dyslexic and ADHD with poor spatial awareness and their roads are tiny. Now granted I didn’t just hop in a car and drive out of London. I knew I was going to be jet lagged, without sleep for over 24 hours (I don’t sleep in planes I have insomnia, it’s a whole thing) and so even driving under normal circumstances would not be advisable let alone in another country, on the opposite side of the road. However, I was undaunted by the idea in part because I am already in the habit of getting outside my comfort zone.
And this is sort of a life hack. When we push ourselves, we feed our confidence and our feelings of competence. Which you may think, “wait, didn’t she just say that some of the stuff she was bad at? So how does it help her feel competent?” Yes! Here’s the awesome, amazing thing, it didn’t kill me! It didn’t end me and in fact, I embraced being bad at it at first because I’ve learned to enjoy the process of mastering something. It’s about learning and growing your inner self not just checking boxes and doing something for an afternoon before swiftly moving on to the next thing. I feel more competent to try things and look foolish even in front of others. I am conquering anxiety and loving it!
We are wired for growth, not stagnation. We are meant to go, explore and conquer. Too many times we assume that we will stay the same person that we are today until we die, that we’ve already completed our growth. However, that’s not the case and studies show that its the people who don’t stop growing that live longer, healthier, happier lives. So what are you waiting for? Go out and try that new thing!
It is easy dear reader to compare ourselves to others especially since others splash their lives up on social media for all to see. Granted, they are curated versions of themselves, but it’s so difficult to remember that. We see people more successful, more well traveled, in the perfect job, having the perfect relationship, enjoying their children, wearing the latest fashion, doing whatever it is we wish we were doing. The algorithm is merciless in that it shows us that which we engage with and of course we are going to engage in the very things we long to have and thus the viscous cycle.
In focusing so much on all the things we do not have, we lose sight of the things we have. We are lost in the mire of have not. Not only that but it robs us of the joy of the things we previously had. How often have we finally received that which we asked for, full of joy and wonder only for a few months later to be grumbling about it?
When I received a rather cheap car that had been through a hailstorm and was close to 20 years old, I was incredibly grateful and amazed at my luck. After all, having not had a car before, having any car was a dream. However, it wasn’t long before the twinges of comparison started. It was by no means a looker in the car department with its dents, faded color and sagging cloth. It was clearly old and not only that but also dented from the hailstorm. When I was interning for an organization whose donors were from the higher echelons of society, I was embarrassed by it. Where was my joy? Where was my gratitude? And frankly, why did I care what they thought?
We pray for a house and then grumble that it doesn’t have a living room and a family room after visiting our aunt’s house. We pay for new floors and then wish we had paid for a vacation instead when we see our friend’s Instagram photos. We give our boyfriend the cold shoulder when Jill from accounting flashes her new engagement ring. We force a smile when our sister announces her second pregnancy and then go home to cry. Our best friend gets a promotion at work and we feel that we’ve fallen behind now. We scroll online and see a headline of a 26 year old retiring using the Fire Method or a list of 30 millionaires under 30 when our 40th birthday looms ever closer. We forget what we have when we start focusing on others. Their blessings become our lack.
Do not get me wrong, ambition and wanting more can be great things. After all, it’s drive and ambition that has put a man on the moon, given us electricity, discovered antibiotics, written symphonies and painted masterpieces. Without it we wouldn’t have our modern world. Competition can also be a good thing when you have someone to push against and with, you both can end up going further than if you were by yourself. However, when that comparison of value and worth starts to creep in, we lose. Part of the problem is that there is always someone above us on the ladder of life and we tend to look ahead of us rather than behind us.
When you move to a nicer neighborhood that you’ve dreamed of being able to be in, after a few months you start seeing the cracks in the sidewalk, the unkempt garden (sorry, neighbors I don’t use herbicides, it’s more a habitat for pollinators) and soon the next neighborhood looks much better. Each house is detached with a garage and clearly has plenty of space each surrounded by a nice neat fence. If you do manage to move then you start eyeing the one where everyone has a 3 to 5 door garage, the houses are more accurately described as mansions with private pools and there’s even a gate to keep out the riff raff. We are so prone to eye the next rung up to strive for what we do not have that we become burdened by ambition creating our own gilded cages of dissatisfaction and envy.
No matter how much we get, how far we go, how much we achieve, it will never be enough so long as we keep comparing ourselves to others because we can never win. The happiest people I know are the ones who live simply unburdened by things, pretenses and social status. They’re the ones who live in the woods or cultivate a small garden in the midst of their urban center. They snuggle cats and walk their dogs. They form genuine connections with others.
Not only does comparison rob us of our joy, but also it robs us of shared joy with others and the connections those shared joys can form. Rather than celebrating those we care most about and instead those moments are like small thorns twisting in our hearts poisoning our spirit. It also poisons our relationships causing a rift to form as you turn away. You begin to question your value and what you bring to the relationship. Perhaps, they sense your distance and wonder at your less than enthusiastic response to their news. They may attribute it to jealousy rather than feelings of inadequacy which can erode the foundations of your relationship.
It robs them of their joy as well. Have you ever gotten great news and when you shared it with someone you got a less than enthusiastic response? What about one that sucks the joy right out of you, leaving you with guilt or remorse? Yes, there are certain circumstances where two people cannot have the same thing, two friends may enter a contest knowing that if one wins the other will lose, but often that’s not the case. If my friend gets a promotion and I respond making it about me and my lack of one, I’ve just diminished her joy instead of amplifying it.
This isn’t to say that you can’t feel how you feel. After all, when you have worked really hard to get somewhere only to see someone else seemingly skate on by to the top, it can be incredibly frustrating and disheartening. You absolutely should let yourself feel those feelings in order to process them. I never recommend suppression and pretending. You can be joyful for another’s triumph while holding your own pain. That’s why I speak about joy rather than happiness. I don’t want to be happy, I want to be joyful.
However, bitterness against your circumstances, the world and even those you care about can set in. Usually, it’s not about the not having, it’s about what the not having means, that you’re less than everyone else. You’re not your job title, your social status, your income bracket, your marital status or any of the world’s measures for worth and value. Focusing on what brings you joy and bringing beauty, kindness, compassion, hope and love to the world are far more worthy pursuits than keeping up with the Joneses. Besides, why do we care what they think? If they look down on you for not having a brand new car or being able to go on a vacation in Belize every summer, that speaks to the low level of their character not yours.
When we stop worrying about what others think and embrace ourselves fully we find joy. When we stop comparing ourselves to everyone around us and “above” us, we find that we are enough just as we are. You are enough, dear reader.
It was a warm summer evening, when my sister and I embarked on a journey to the far east or rather to partake in some food and traditions imported from Asia to the United States. This particular evening, we were attended a Water Lantern Festival. One of the amazing things about America is our immigrant roots, welcoming people from across the globe. These people come and bring with them their culture, traditions, beliefs, music and cuisines. It is what makes America a rich, cultural tapestry of endless variety.
We began our journey by stopping at a Thai restaurant which is owned and operated by Thai people. I always get excited when I can stop at places owned by people who intimately understand the cuisine they are cooking, whether that be because they are originally from there, have family originally from there or spent enough time in careful study to obtain a level of mastery in the authentic way the cuisine ought to be prepared. As someone who doesn’t necessarily have the money to hop on a plane to experience authentic Thai food, I appreciated the opportunity and the culinary skill of the chef. Dinner was a delicious red curry, since I cannot resist a menu item with Thai Basil and my sister had their drunken noodles of which I stole a few bites.
After dinner, we headed over to Harrisburg to the Italian garden where the Water Lantern Fest would be held. The Italian garden is beautiful in its own right, but it was extra festive for the fest and the weather proved to be perfect. It wasn’t too hot, nor was it chilly. The blue sky was clear overhead and it promised to be a lovely evening. It took us a little time to locate the actual stand to obtain the water lanterns as the park was open for all to enjoy. We did eventually find the true “entrance” to the fest by asking some people for directions and headed up the hill to obtain our goodie bags and lanterns. After claiming our prizes, we walked around the end of the manmade lake to find a good spot under the shade of a tree.
I had attended a lantern fest before, where you release lanterns into the sky which took on a more party atmosphere for the people attending with music and bounce houses, bonfires and food trucks. This one had most of those things tucked away from the main event so that you could still enjoy vendors, food and other activities, but it did not distract from what you were there to do. Nor was the crowd quite as big as at the Lantern Fest which was just as well, since I tend to favor smaller events to the massive crowds. What I enjoyed about this one was the more subdued and even reflective atmosphere. Flags proudly proclaimed things like gratitude, healing, love and connection, encouraging you to reflect rather than party. The crowd was fairly quiet with many people conversing with their heads together, smiling and laughing. The goodie bag even included conversation cards with prompts to start deeper discussions with the people you were with in order to foster deeper connections. My sister and I were delighted by these and have taken them out at other occasions and have found them to be great at prompting conversations.
The kit for the lantern included a wooden base, a lantern which could be written upon and a small led candle to turn on and place in the lantern. We noted that most of the lantern components could be reused, recycled or easily be broken down in the environment. Being a manmade lake, the lanterns were in no danger of polluting local waterways or interfering with native wildlife. In addition, the event organizer One World proudly supports water.org. Water.org is an organization which focuses on increasing global access to safe drinking water. They include an informational pamphlet and easy options to donate to raise money to support this cause. I love it when an event is able to go beyond just an enjoyable evening and helps to provide a positive impact.
I decorated my lantern with things that I was grateful for and my sister decorated hers with art including a celtic knot and a flowers. Once the sun slipped beneath the horizon, they asked us to gather around the edges of the lake and to pause for reflection. Then they invited us to release our lanterns to allow them to float upon the water. One by one, they spread out, glittering together like stars. As I stepped back to take in the sight, I was able to let out a deep sigh of contentment. Naturally, we snapped a few photos, but mostly my sister and I just walked along the path enjoying the sight and quietly conversing.
It should be noted that while my dinner was still firmly rooted in its culture of origin, the Water Lantern Fest was less so. Water Lamps originated in India and spread throughout Asia most likely through Buddhist diffusion. They appear in many festivals and have many meanings ranging from worshiping gods, praying for a good marriage, welcoming happiness, guiding the spirits of the departed or welcoming happiness. In Vietnam, there is a town which releases them quite frequently. In China, they are released throughout the year. In Japan, they usually release them to help guide the souls of the dead to the spirit world and allows for reflection for lost loved ones. Sometimes, things are lost in translation especially as it gets diffused across different cultures as it has in Asia since they have a lot of different meanings all over the continent.
Still, despite being a bit unmoored from its roots, it still felt as if it were in the spirit of the original customs. Where other events encourage a sort of frantic, frenanic frenzy of activity, this festival invited you to slow down, to pause and reflect. It encouraged building relationships between people and being more mindful of your surroundings. They also allowed people to come up to a microphone and share their stories. Some people shared their loss, others shared their victories, whereas others shared gratitude. There were lanterns that people dedicated to their loved ones. In a sense, the festival was a melting pot of the many traditions associated with water lanterns from Asia and transforming into something uniquely American. It certainly was not an authentic experience, but it falls under my “good enough” category.
How can you experience a Water Lantern Fest?
The best way is to go to their website WaterLanternFestival.com and click on your state to see when they might be coming to you. I encourage you to buy tickets early since they increase in price as the date approaches.
However, there is nothing to stop you from ordering some lanterns and LED candles and hosting your own smaller version with a group of friends. Although, it doesn’t quite hold a candle (pun intended) to seeing a few hundred floating all together, their reflections shimmering in the darkness of the water. It is also important to note that there may be local ordinances preventing such an activity and you would need to ensure proper clean up. After all, we want to keep our local environments beautiful so we can continue to enjoy it for years to come.
Completed: July 15, 2023
Cost: $36 per person (was advertised as $27 but there were vendor fees)
In my last post, I referenced how living one’s best life is in part living a life with purpose or a life in which one applies ones talents in support of a calling to serve others. I went on to wax poetic about the first of three parts, mostly about talents and how to cultivate them. In this post, I shall attempt to unpack the second part of that statement, mainly one’s calling. This is probably the trickiest part of the whole thing. The first part is rather simple, just consider your interests and start to develop them, they’ll become skills and later talents. Yes, there is a certain difficulty in the discipline required to do that, but in general one is not sitting around with no idea of what one’s own interests are. The third part is also fairly easy, find other people, utilize said skills/talents to assist them.
So what is a calling? How would we even know what it looks like? What does it mean? I am no philosopher and certainly lack the wisdom of the sages to give a definitive answer. Still, if one seeks enlightenment then one must learn to wrestle with such questions and start to consider the answers for oneself and not merely rely on the elders who have come before to answer for us. We are not here to merely echo the philosophers that came before otherwise we would have been satisfied with the answers of Plato and Socretes and Descartes and Vonnegut would have needed to occupy themselves with other diversions. So that is what I shall do here and perhaps, dear reader, you shall wrestle with this question yourself. I certainly hope so, otherwise how shall I become wiser if no one challenges me – I digress.
So first what is a calling? Often people will feel a strong desire towards a certain profession or job that feels fulfilling. Passion + meaning = calling. However, I question the idea that it should be connected with a particular profession. At risk of coming off conceited or judgemental, I doubt that most people would consider being a garbage man or grocery work a calling. Do not mistake, dear reader, the statement for condescension. It takes little stretch of the imagination to see how vital these roles are, but our society does not hold such roles in high regards despite their inherent importance. When the pandemic shut down much of the world, it was not the garbage collectors and grocery workers who stayed home. Yet, I doubt that many of those in those positions would say that such a profession is their calling even though these are vital to the functioning of society. Those jobs are meaningful in that they help others, but few people are passionate about them.
Contrarywise, many people in higher paying and higher status jobs lack both passion and meaning. They may push papers around a desk, crunch numbers and complete tasks for the corporate overlords. Many may not even really understand why their position is vital to the company, some may even struggle to articulate what precisely they do when their friends and families ask. If their job disappeared tomorrow would it have a negative impact on society? Would others miss it? Would they even notice it’s passing? When mass layoffs occurred in the tech sector, were many of us concerned about it? Did any of us outside the industry truly worry that vital goods and services would be disrupted? That isn’t to diminish the pain of those who were part of that, it is merely to illustrate that those jobs most likely do not have much meaning associated with them as it requires the stretch of the imagination to consider how they are all that helpful to society as a whole.
In fact, there’s an anthropologist who theorizes that up to 40% of our jobs are “bullshit” jobs or a job that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, the person doing it can’t justify its existence. These are jobs usually taken up by meetings and emails and are so bogged down in paperwork that one is left wondering if you’re doing anything other than existing. Elon Musk fired 90% of people at twitter and it had almost zero impact on the service it provided. Do you see the danger in tying a calling to one’s profession? These jobs are still important, some are quite meaningful if not readily recognized and others lack passion and meaning are nonetheless important in other ways. I won’t go too far down the rabbit trail of the sheer amount of job bloat in corporate America. It is only that there are very few professions that will allow a person to pursue a passion and have meaning.
For most of human history, one’s profession was the way to keep a roof overhead, food in one’s stomach and clothes on one’s back. It truly wasn’t until much more recently that we started hearing the message that we should follow our dreams and surely good things would follow. Most of my generation grew up on stories admonishing us that happiness was to be found in pursuing jobs that were our “calling” and the reality came crashing down on us. While others may waggle their fingers at us for pursuing “underwater basket weaving” as majors, who was it that told us we not only could by offering it to us in the first place as a legitimate major but encouraged us that we should do it from our earliest years? I know I certainly grew up on stories that one should follow one’s passions as the path to happiness. A lovely notion perhaps for a different time.
As with many ideals our society pushes, we must free ourselves of the shackles that bind us to them. Our calling need not be our job – a good thing too, considering the constraints upon us otherwise. That isn’t to say that one cannot find a profession that exactly matches one’s calling, simply that it isn’t necessary. Your job does not have to be your calling or even your passion. It’s nice when that happens and there are a few lucky people who “never have to work” because they love what they do so much. If you are one of them, I raise a glass to your good fortune friend! However, there will always be people who are needed to complete the passionless work – whether that be the necessary paper pushing bureaucrats who shuffle the necessary government forms about or the oil rig workers who risk life and limb to ensure we have the necessary fuel for our modern world. It is a rare person indeed who finds either one of those to be their passion.
Now that we’ve dispensed, such a silly notion that our calling must directly lead to our job, we discover that there is in fact quite a wide range of things we could do in those hours not spent on the job. Your job could help fund your passion or otherwise help connect you with the right resources be they monetary or social to pursue them. So long as whatever you do arises from things that you are truly passionate about and works towards the benefit of others. Perhaps, you have a strong talent for sports and take up coaching youth soccer in your hometown. Perhaps, you have strong feelings about conservation and turn your efforts to going to your town meetings to make your voice heard or you go around collecting signatures on a petition.
You may not even quite know yet how to figure out which one of your many passions to pursue. There are a myriad of things to be passionate about, music, art, sports, politics, the environment, trees, air quality, public health, homelessness, the law, philosophy, teaching, psychology, and well, pretty much anything in existence. I am rather passionate about cats myself, but are they my calling? I have adopted several of them and care for them, they certainly enrich my life, but I don’t know that I’d call it a calling. I don’t feel called to be a pet parent. I merely enjoy being one. A calling is the match of your deepest passions and beliefs with the deep needs of the world around you.
It can take many years to discover one’s true calling or path and one must be willing to pivot with new information. Most people simply do not have the necessary introspection or knowledge base at 18 or 19 to decide what their calling truly is. Most have some inkling of interests if no actual skill set or talent and they certainly don’t know enough to be truly passionate about anything. If you, dear reader, are of the younger sort, put down your pitch fork before you angrily respond to the above statement in the comments. There is simply far too much to know about the world in order for you not to go down some well-meaning and perhaps misguided path. There is some evidence to suggest that you don’t really have a good idea of your true calling until you’re about 40 years old. Which is honestly a bit of a relief for those of us who are younger than that. You may dear reader, be breathing a sigh of relief – “Oh good, I’m not supposed to have it figured out yet”. Perhaps, I really am meant to open up that cat cafe and spending my days with my feline friends is actually my calling after all!
I encourage you dear reader to take some time to journal and explore your passions. Think about the things you used to enjoy or were once interested in before the world got in the way and told you it was dumb or not valuable. Perhaps, your calling lurks in there. Consider what you enjoyed when you were quite small. Think about your heroes and people you really admired. I find that a lot of good things comes from journaling, especially when you let go and just let the thoughts come forth. It’s like your subconscious builds a bridge to your unconscious and everything just sort of flows out. You may be quite shocked at what you put to page once you let it go.
The key is not to let whatever you think your calling is become part of your ego. Don’t get too attached to any one path or idea because it will change and evolve. After all, I just said that one’s job is probably not one’s calling. Money is necessary to do things like eat and have a roof over your head. And the expression of ones calling can take many forms. A person whose calling is working with the youth may become a teacher, a coach, a youth pastor, a therapist who specializes in children, a volunteer for big brothers, big sisters, a mentor, a foster parent or something else not listed here. However, if one is too stuck on a singular idea or path you may miss the boat entirely. If you think that you must be a teacher because you feel called to prepare the next generation and you objectively suck at teaching larger groups of students, you will be miserable and your students won’t get your gifting. If you instead volunteer for big brothers, big sisters after becoming an accountant, you will find that your gift is working as a mentor for disadvantaged youth and perhaps tutoring them in math thus helping shape their futures in a much more meaningful and powerful way.
I’m not exactly sure if this post is all that useful, since finding one’s calling is rather tricky. I only hope that I have helped dispel some of the misconceptions that people have around their calling to help free you to be a bit more creative and open to the possibilities of how it might manifest itself. Truth be told, I’m still working out exactly what my calling is, but I keep getting closer with each trial and error that I make and with each new experience that I have. After all, part of my bucket list is to help me explore and get to know myself better.
We often hear or even say the phrase “living my best life”, but what does it actually mean? Is it being able to reach your goals? To live a full life? What is a full life? In general when we use say look at this person living their best life, we usually see someone who has fully embraced being themselves without caring what others think. But how do we even know that they really are living their best life? What does a “best life” even entail? It probably does and should look different for different people. What makes my life “best” isn’t what will make your life “best”. There are, of course, guiding principles. After all, this whole blog is in part to help people live better lives. For most people a best life is one that comes from connection to others and a sense of meaning or purpose without worrying too much about the judgment of people.
There are a myriad of ways to arrive at those two things. I have seen lists of anywhere from 6 items to 30 items of how to arrive at a “best life” or to live a fuller one. Some of these lists even conflict with each other like focusing on yourself and your own personal growth yet being “other” centered. If you grew up in the Christian community you may have been told that JOY comes by putting Jesus first, others second and yourself last. All well and good, until you stop caring for yourself at all and forgetting that you can’t help other people if you haven’t been taking care of yourself first. On the other hand, always putting yourself first is obviously narcissistic and self-ish, certainly not the way to form meaningful connections to others. How to reconcile the two conflicting sides?
This post isn’t necessarily to tell you how to arrive at those two things, more to get you to try and think about what might help you get there. As illustrated above, there are people for whom the advice of putting yourself first is absolutely necessary! I talk about boundaries and self-care in other posts precisely because putting my own needs last was something I struggled with leading to burn out, resentment and bitterness. Not things that helped my relationships.
However, there are certainly many people who need to be told to put others at the center and to focus on getting out of their own world and be more mindful about how their actions affect others. The character of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol certainly needed that lesson lest he find himself cast into hell for his self-centeredness. All things in moderation I suppose.
For some people living their best life may be learning to let go of stress and worries, for other people it may be that they need to worry about the future a little more. You may need to learn to stop caring so much about what others think or you may want to consider others opinions a little more. The path to a “best life” is one that is always evolving and changing. Each person is an individual and what their best life looks like is going to be different.
One of the best ways to achieve a best life is through self-reflection.
After all, how do we know what we need to learn and how do we know when we’re being ourselves if we don’t take time to self-reflect? One way to really get to know ourselves is to “talk to ourselves”, not in the crazy person sort of way, but through journaling. I often find myself surprised by some of the things that come out of my own journaling where I let the flow of the subconscious go where it will. I may look for various prompts to consider to help jump start my self-exploration. There are also journals out there geared to specific topics or goals. For journaling to be truly effective requires us to be really honest with ourselves willing to face possibly ugly truths.
Journaling can also help us explore our relationships to help us determine if we are truly connected to others. In learning more about ourselves, would we be able to share these insights with those closest to us? Do we have people who we can truly express ourselves and be vulnerable with? True connection to others means that you can be authentically yourself. After all, some of the loneliest people on the planet are those who are extremely popular. Why? Because in pursuing being liked by everyone, they are too afraid to show their real selves lest they be rejected. The hard truth is that you won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but you have a choice to make, be your authentic self to have real connection with others or disguise yourself and be alone.
This can be extremely difficult because it requires us to live without fear of the judgment of others, which is the main reason so many of us choose to live inauthentic lives and to settle for relationships that are shallow. However, this is a key piece of living our best lives. As I said at the beginning of this post, when we say “look at this person living their best life” it’s often said as a form of respect for someone who clearly doesn’t give a “f” what others think. They’re the people walking down the street dressed outrageously. The people dancing in the street to a musician. The ones who call you darling as they don a hat before splashing in a fountain. They laugh too loud, love too deeply, hear poetry in the rain and see works of art in the swirling of leaves in the wind. They may also be the ones who aren’t afraid to piss people off with how they view the world, unafraid to speak up and speak out. However they live, they are authentically and unapologetically themselves.
I danced for these street musicians as if no one was watching!
Living authentically isn’t being a jerk about it though. These are people who don’t care if they tick people off but they don’t purposefully go out of their way to do so. It isn’t about being mean. It’s about respectfully disagreeing and holding themselves apart from the judgment of others. It’s more of a live and let live attitude. Like okay, you don’t like that I live my life this way, but it’s no skin off your nose and I don’t have to listen to your criticisms about it if they aren’t constructive or useful. Someone living their best life knows that bees don’t argue with flies that honey is better than crap.
Another benefit to journaling is it can allow us to consider another aspect to a best life, living with purpose. I’m not here to tell you what a purposeful life is or is not. Each of us has a calling. Each of us has a gift or talent. I can’t tell you what those are because I’m not you. In general, a purposeful life involves leaving the world a better place, and helping others. Some people may have very obvious purposes like teachers, nurses and EMT workers. Teaching the next generation, healing the sick and protecting others are all very obviously meaningful things to do based on the values of our society.
However, almost any job can be infused with meaning when placed into a larger context of helping others. Nor does your purpose have to be tied to your job. I once interned for a group of businessmen who invested money. They were quite good at it, but rather than simply take all the money for profit, they used it to open an orphanage in Africa. This orphanage did not stop assistance at the age of 18, but rather continued to invest in the children, helping them obtain higher education. The children were able to start businesses in their local community and become leaders thus laying a firm foundation for independence in the region. Their calling was to help disadvantaged children and to grow a community in Africa even though their jobs had almost nothing to do directly with this calling. Your talents and your calling may be seemingly disparate things that nonetheless are yours.
There are, afterall, lots of ways to leave the world a better place.Talents don’t have to be utilized in a specific way. Your job doesn’t have to exactly match your calling. It’s certainly easy when the two directly align, but sometimes they may seem completely disconnected. You also don’t have to have your calling address every ill in the world to leave it a better place. Some people’s calling is to focus on the environment, others may have a calling to help sick children. Both are worthy callings that do not negate the other nor is one automatically better than the other. There are unfortunately a lot of problems in the world and there’s just no way for each of us to address all of them all at once. That isn’t to say don’t do what you can for the problems of the world, do the part you can. Your calling is the thing you focus on.
The point is for you to determine for yourself what your talents are and how to apply them to your specific calling. I will probably write a more extensive post on a purposeful life, but as I said earlier this post is more to help you start to consider what a best life is and how you might start to consider what your best life looks like. To be honest, I’m still figuring it out. One of the reasons I have a bucket list is to try new things, complete new challenges, to grow, and learn more about myself.
So what are you waiting for? Go forth, dear reader, and start living your authentic best life!
Budget Bliss: Bucket List 