Thank you Fiona
The quote by Fiona Apple that has become a sort of mantra for me in the last couple of years:
“I don't want to make this sound negative at all, but in the best way possible I freaking give up. I give up. You can't try and make your life perfect. I'm just trying to have a good time, and I'm just trying to appreciate the things that I have around me. I give up on the 'dream' dream. I think that it's all a dream. I think it's all wonderful and terrible. And I give up in the nicest way.”
We grow up internalizing the dream; that there is a dream to follow, to strive towards, to grind hard for. That is all good and admirable to do but some of us (that includes the younger version of myself) run the danger of getting too fixated, entranced, by the dream until it becomes all too consuming and we lose sight of everything else.
Life is indeed much richer and complicated than a singular path towards a singular goal. It's more akin to a rich tapestry to wander through. Got to enjoy the scenery, the beauty of it all, or else what's the point.
“I stopped in the middle of that building and I saw — the sky. I saw the things that I love in this world. The work and the food and time to sit and smoke. And I looked at the pen and said to myself, what the hell am I grabbing this for? Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be? What am I doing in an office, making a contemptuous, begging fool of myself, when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am! Why can't I say that, Willy?”
Follow your dreams and accept the consequences of doing so, if there is anything worth doing in this life, above anything else, that's it. But also, be kind, to those around you and to yourself. Then hopefully happiness will find you.