Ennui

WNG has posted a bit about her ennui. I feel her pain. I feel it enough to take a personal inventory...

- I have a decent job; not the thing I want to do for the rest of my life, but decent, nonetheless, and I just got a raise.
- I have great friends, and an active social life.
- I am playing handball, volleyball, badminton, and now dodgeball every week.
-The Black Vatican web comic is coming along nicely. We have introduced most of the main characters (their are two to go) and the first major story arc is already written.
- I've been a bit lonely in the past year, living alone in my little house, but I'm moving into a communal living arrangement with 4 of my closest female friends (I know what you're thinking, but it's not like that - although I was a "pro playa" at one time, I doubt that even I could wrangle 4 at once, especially under the same roof...). The new house will cut my living expenses by about half - so I will actually have some money again after the move is complete.
- Although I have graduated from college (twice), I am still taking classes. These classes are in Sociology, and will lead to a third bachelor's degree, unless I get into grad school before that.

That all doesn't sound too bad, does it?

I suppose it doesn't, and yet I am still fairly miserable at times. I don't want to be riding a cubicle down the highway of life. I know that many of my readers are students, and thus can't wait to be done with their schooling, but I would like to be a student forever - I hate the 8-5 grind. I want to be in grad school right now, and I want to know that the end of this phase of my life is coming. I want to know for certain that I'm leaving Laramie at some point, and I want to know that it is because I have another opportunity elsewhere. I want to get on with the life I think I am supposed to have. I want the waiting to be over.

So why am I sharing all of this? Because WNG and I can't be the only ones who feel this way.

We all go to school until we graduate, waiting for your lives to start. Then, we go on to whatever we decide to do - more school, or job, or the military, or marriage - and that feeling of waiting for your life to begin doesn't really go away. It just changes. We start waiting for other things, like our tax returns, or Spring, or the holidays, or for something better to happen than what is happening now. Before we know it we have invested 10 years in a job or a relationship or a degree, and yet - we are still waiting.

The sad reality that most of us don't want to face is that this is it. This is the life you are going to have.
You are not going to pitch in the majors.
You are not going to be a rock star.
You are not going to be President.
You are not going to have a perfect body.
You are not going to be an astronaut.
You are not going to win an Oscar.
In fact, you might never win anything, or be anything, or do anything of note.

Let that sink in.

No really - let it hit you squarely.

Now, realize that none of those things means you can't have an amazing life.

I'm not trying to crush any dreams here. I'm just saying that most of us spend way too long waiting for something to happen, for some time in the future when we will be who we always thought we were going to be. The truth is, no amount of waiting will make you the person you thought you'd be. All that ennui you are feeling is our minds' way of letting us know that. Be who you want to be. Start today.