"Live Your Life

Something that I've wanted to post about for the past few months is success. As I have an assignment due tomorrow and am 0/1000 on my word count, I thought "hey, now is a great time to procrastinate write a post".



A few months ago when I was re-enrolling for my last year of university I was struck down with a multitude of emotions.

I felt relieved that this would be my last undergraduate year.

I felt proud that I had finally made it to this point.

Then I felt embarrassed.



I
felt embarrassed because of the time it has taken me to complete my
degree. Yes, I've had a few stop/starts which were beyond my control.
But I also had a few bouts of failure. 

I am reminded of this
every day that I sit in a class with students that had not even begun
high-school, when I began at University.

I am reminded of this
every time that Brad and I talk about plans for the future. I get mad at
myself and feel as if it weren't for those failures that we would be
realising those dreams now. It hurts.



The reason I
wanted to post about this, is because I know others in my life hurt too.
We look at the achievements or milestones in the lives of those we
know, and instead of feeling out right joy for them, our feelings of
congratulations are marred with a tinge of jealousy.



We wonder what life would be like if we took a different career path.

We dream about where we would be if only we had done some thing different.

We wish that we had finished our degrees, and were out in the real world, earning real money. 

We worry that we may never know what it is we want to be when we "grow up".

We feel like we may be stuck at uni/in an un-fulfilling job forever. 





We have got to stop measuring ourselves against the success of others, their relationships, their jobs, their fortunes.



We
have to focus on our own happiness, in what ever shape or form it may
take. And whilst we are at it we may as well take an audit of all the
wonderful things we have in our own lives. 

All this energy wasted on entertaining the possibilities of our parallel lives is pointless.

In
wanting what others have, we miss the beauty of what we have already
been blessed with, our partners, children, our friends and family and
for some freedom.





I sat at my
Faculty Adviser's desk yesterday. He remarked on how long I had been at
University, and how many papers I had missed. He rudely, albeit, subtly
suggested how embarrassing that might be for me. This is what I said:



"Yes
I have failed a few papers. But I'm still here, aren't I? And I'm
applying to Graduate in December, so it can't be that bad, can it?"









Some people say that to enjoy life you must live it without regrets.



I don't believe this to be true.



What
I do believe is that whatever life you're living, enjoy it. It's yours,
and only yours. You can have regrets, as long as they are your regrets. You can and will have failures, but make sure that you failed doing something that you chose to do, not what others were doing or wanted you to do. It is your life after all, you may as well make the most of it.



Think about it.