Happy Moment #45: An Honest Reflection on Finding Those Happy Moments

I have stumbled on this video before (and, in fact, I commented on this video at the beginning of my #50for50 experiment), but this Youtube video featuring actor Matthew McConaughey showed up on the feed of my Facebook account earlier this morning once again (apparently this is a speech he have at a college commencement ceremony).

Here are some of the lines that grabbed my attention:

"Life is not easy."

"Life is not fair."

"Things are more rewarding when you break a sweat to get them."

"What does success mean to use?"

"Your answer [to success] may change over time and that's fine."

"Don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character."

"Decrease your options [as you figure out who you are]."

"Knowing who we are is hard ... eliminate who you are not first."

"Be discerning"

"We're gonna make mistakes. You gotta own them and then make amends."

"Guilt and regret kill many a man before his time."

"You are the author of the book of your life."

I wasn't too freaked out about turning 50 years old ... until October started. I guess since I have reached my actual birthday month that the "realness" of turning an age that is such a milestone marker finally hit me. I am turning 50. My undergraduate days were a long time ago, with high school feeling even longer. I lived in Japan for a total of almost 4 years and that almost feels like it happened to another person and not me. How did this happen? How did I get to this point in my life where I am likelier closer to death than to birth?!

The whole point of this experiment of documenting 50 moments that felt like pure happiness to me was to get myself out of the rut that it some ways it feels like my life has veered towards. Borrowing McConaughey's words above, how can I be more "discerning" about where I put my energy?

Here are my thoughts in short. Growing up as a military brat was a trying time for me because I was yanked out of schools every year and could never get a clear bearing of who I was. Kids picked on me (I was always the new kid) and I used that to define who I was. I was unhappy as a teen because I didn't have a lot of friends even once my dad retired from the military (though I now recognize that I had several quality friends as I was growing up who have continued to be important spirits in my life). I attended a college that was as far away from my childhood demons as I could get in an attempt to redefine myself. In some ways that was successful but in other ways it opened up wounds that took me a long time to address. I spent most of my adulthood working hard on the dream of acquiring a PhD and getting a full-time English professor position. When I met an incredible man who loved me and saw beauty and compassion, I realized that I could be "loved" and maybe I wasn't the awful person I thought I had always been. When I got the dream job, I dedicated myself to figuring out the theories of "how" writing instruction could be more effective. When I graduated from SIU in December 2014 -- after working my ass off for a degree that took me 12 years to finish -- I thought that finally .... finally I could embrace happiness. But even that degree wasn't a magical pill.

So here I am trying to use this milestone birthday to figure out what it is that makes me happy and how I want to spend any time left that I have on this planet, whether it is a day, a week, a month, or even (hopefully) years. I don't want to offend anyone but here is what I am thinking: I am not sure that I am happy in my job. I love teaching but I wish I worked at a place that I felt better supported and more appreciated. I love St Louis but I miss living in a place that makes my soul happy (like home in Washington or even a remote place like Islay in Scotland). Perhaps, again, using the video above, my definition of success has changed over time. I made it to the top of what I considered success for a long time and now I am not so sure that this is what I want anymore. But I am also not sure of what exactly it is that I do want.

I guess, if anything, I truly get the idea of why people get those often talked about "mid-life crisis moments" -- turning 50 puts you in a unique position in your life. And there are so many things I am happy about in my life -- my marriage, my teaching, my friends, my traveling. I feel lucky to be in a financial position to do things in life that make me happy but is that enough? For example, can I wait out another 6-7 years until retirement to then do something else? Or do I make that change now?

A hard question to answer. If I am the author of my own book, again as McConaughey alludes to above, I guess I need to pull out some more paper and pens.