What Makes People Happy?

I haven't posted in awhile.  I'm now not sure exactly what I was thinking when I chose this blog name (or why I paid through 2015).  I think it was one of those moments on Godaddy when every idea for a name you have is taken unless you pay $5k to some sketchy company.  What a surprise that the super awesome name I chose was available!

I have never quite gotten the hang of blogging.  It is crazy to me that you write something in your pajamas, push a button, and suddenly your words might pop up on someone's computer in China (or maybe will never be read by anyone).  It is sort of a sharing Russian roulette.  I like the idea that somewhere, someday (well, before 2015), someone else will be feeling alone and like no one else feels the way they do and might stumble on this and feel that at least one person with awful taste in domain names has been there (I guess it would be more of a comfort if it was a person with awesome taste, but alas, I am just one woman).

I think I came here tonight because I have been feeling lost, and I am tired of talking to my friends about the same old thing, which is basically that I am not happy in my life and don't know what to do about it.  I have not, in fact, been happy in my life for quite a long time, and the years are running past me, and I feel like I've missed my chance to seize my best life.  Now I'm left with my third or fourth best lives, and soon I'll have missed those too.  But, even knowing that I need to do something to get out of this rut, I am truly at a loss as to what to do.

If I had unlimited resources, I would move to Italy like the Eat, Pray, Love lady and cry into my amazing pizza before ambling off to Bali to engage in a life-changing love affair. Since my savings account is hovering around zero-ish with student loan debt making my net worth negative, I will have to settle for musing on the internet. 

Here is the question I muse about:  what makes people happy?

This is what I see: we are raised to all want the same fairly cookie cutter life.  First, you aim to be really popular in school in whatever group you choose to be your group.  You do that by being like everyone else in that group, whether you're a cheerleader or in a band (of the cool or school varieties) or school plays or sports or too cool for any of the above, and then you aspire to the next great thing from that group, whether it's playing professional sports or going to Harvard.  Of course you're eventually supposed to find a soulmate, fall deeply in love after a torrid romance, get married and have kids.  You need a job you love that is supposed to make you rich but also fulfill you.  Then you need a house and a great car and a timeshare or summer home or amazing annual trip.  This is your life.

Except... what if you can't find those things?  What if you never find a group where you fit, and you never quite want what everyone else wants and tells you to want, and you never find the awesome job or the amazing soulmate that helps you produce those amazing kids?  You feel like you've somehow missed the boat, although I'm starting to feel like the people who get the job they thought was their dream job and the spouse they thought was their soulmate also end up feeling like they missed the boat.

So, we're back to what makes us happy.  I really don't know the answer.  Aren't you glad you read this, random person in China?  I've managed to solve 0% of life's great mysteries.  I've exhausted myself!  Off to sleep the sleep of the mediocre internet muser.