My New Dream Is Just To Be Really Fucking Happy

“So, what’s your dream?”

This is a question that has followed me around my entire adult life. In job interviews, on dates, even when just casually meeting new people. At first, when someone hurled this question at me, I always felt like I needed an exact, detailed answer.

Naïve, silly 18-year-old me would have probably told you I’d be writing jokes for other people to tell. My insatiable thirst to jump from place to place at age 21 would have told you I’d be an author, traveling the world collecting adventures and memories. At 23 my heart would have told you I was in love, and my dreams were beating in someone else’s chest.

Now I’m 25. I don’t write comedy, I’m not a famous author, and I am not in love. I worry about student loans, I wonder how I can raise my credit score, and my google search history could be an entire thesis paper on anxiety and depression. And relationships can be really, really difficult.

I am confused and unsure and completely clueless about what tomorrow will look like. And after countless conversations trying to figure out this loaded question, I’ve decided I don’t know. And I think that is more than acceptable.

What I do know is this: I want to be happy.

And I don’t mean content, not in the slightest. I want to be really fucking happy. I want to wake up in the morning and be excited about the work I am doing, whatever that work may look like. I want to know that what I do for the majority of my day brings strength to those that need it most. I want to look next to me and see a partner who is willing to build something extraordinary with me. I want to look in the mirror and like the person looking back at me. I want to ditch my Xanax prescription. I don’t want to worry about things that hold no real value. I don’t want to be doing anything because I have to. I’ll be doing it because I want to.

I am passionate at my core, and that passion has driven me to get to places that I never thought possible. I picked up my entire life and moved to the greatest city in the world with no money, no job, and no friends. And maybe I don’t have a detailed map of my dream world or a 5-year plan or any plan at all, really. I just know in order to make something grand, you have to start with yourself. You have to be honest with yourself and do the hard work that comes with that honesty. You have to be brave and step out of your comfort zone. You have to allow yourself to grow. This isn’t easy. It’s hard and rocky, and sometimes it will feel like there is no movement forward. But there is. The shift is happening because you are fighting to get to that place.

You have everything inside of you that you need to be really fucking happy.

Go out and chase that dream.