“I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love not with the fight but only the victory. And life doesn’t work that way.”

This quote is from a piece titled, You probably know to ask yourself, “What do I want?” Here’s a way better question, and written by Mark Manson has led me to ask some introspective questions..

What do I want to struggle for? What pain do I want to endure in the quest for contentment and true happiness in this life? Well...If you had asked me this question at the beginning of my college career I would have told you a hundred different things.

At one point I was sure I wanted to be a sexologist.

At one point I thought for sure that I wanted to take over my family's farm.

At one point I really thought I wanted to get an intersectional doctorate degree and be a professor.

At one point I thought I wanted to get an environmental job across the country and move.

So what about now? What pain and struggle do I want to take on now?

It is clear to me that I was not actually in love with the tediousness of the academic world.

That I was not in love with the internal struggle surrounding moving back to the Central Valley.

That I was not in love with the thought of being completely alone in a foreign place quite yet.

So what about now? What struggle sounds the most pleasant? What pain can be met with a simultaneous pleasure?

In this present moment...all I know is that I want to garden, exercise, and travel after I graduate.

I want the struggle of working the land, planting my crops, and harvesting them.

I am in love with the fight that I feel within myself as I push my body further and further through exercise.

I want the process that I will undergo mentally and physically through travel.

And that is it. No more. No less.

Let me explain this realization that I have had in another way:

I keep asking myself what I have really learned in college...and I am just now figuring it out. I have learned how to be content with myself and my desires. I have learned to rid myself of the plague that is dissatisfaction and a constant thirst for more. To be happy in the simplicity of my life. To make peace with not being able to fix all of the problems around me, & to instead focus on what I can do that is positive and does make me happy in the purest of ways

And it feels freaking amazing.

...I have realized that to be happy, is to be honest with yourself. To find what you want to do, not what you want to be and to chase after that. Because life is not going to give you victories or rewards for free. As Mark Manson says...life doesn't work that way.