I’ll tell you this much. If you’re unhappy now, doing nothing about your unhappiness will ensure that you’ll be more unhappy in the future. Not to mention that you’ll be older and it will be harder to make a change.
Look, the pursuit of happiness is a luxury that many people desire because everyone says that’s what we should all strive for. But I would have you consider the following. Before you go pursuing happiness, the more important thing to find is meaning. Meaning is much tougher, but also much more gratifying.
Most people attempt to pursue meaning and they often find that it might require sacrifice so they default back into searching for temporary happiness. I don’t blame em either. It’s hard to sustain a focus on something that isn’t apparent right away. Meaning takes time to develop and honestly, it’s pretty easy to be happy.
You may be in a soul-sucking situation. Get out of it as fast as possible! Don’t stay in a place where your mental (and physical health) are at risk. Plan out your escape like a responsible person. Imagine what your perfect life would be like and work towards it.
At the end of the day, the only way you’re gonna make any serious change is to imagine the steps it will take. Help yourself by creating an ethic or a standard. Strategize around it. Don’t let the opportunity to create everlasting change slip 5, 10, 15 years down the road to where you can’t control its momentum. Make a move now to make a change.
Jerry “meaningful” Washington
P.S. The best way to imagine your steps is to first take some time imagining and writing out what your perfect life would look like. Imagine it as detailed as possible. That’s what you are aiming for. The second step is to imagine what your life would be like if you did absolutely nothing and made no changes and write that out. If there is a major difference (which there should be) then you’ve got some work to do…Talk soon!