Rules

I want to tell you about why you don’t need to follow any of the rules you already know about success. When you’re young, you’re taught very specific ways of living. You go to school, you listen well, you do your homework. If you do it really well they let you do it some more. You go to college, you get your degree, BOOM, success is made! It’s a given, right?

You graduate. You get a job in your field. You get a job. You get a job? I said you get a job!
Shit.
What happened to the guarantee that we reap the benefits of our hard work following the rules?

There’s a consciousness rising within us, collectively. Slowly, through the haze of student loans we can’t pay back, and the idea that we didn’t really need the degree to follow our hearts… we have begun to push back. I’m not sure we’re all particularly aware of it yet, but there are increasing numbers of people who even come to find that they feel a pull to another field, or another place, like maybe we didn’t have it all figured out at 18. Heh.

We’re learning that the rules we’ve been following didn’t need to apply. That “quest complete” for living a 9-5, a commute, even children, and that white picket fence weren’t the destination. We’re learning, in fact, that there might not even be a destination.

We have all these resentments and frustrations about the fact that we don’t feel like we’re where we’re supposed to be. A resounding chorus, of “I really thought I’d have my shit together by now.” echoes from sea to shining sea. And I’m angry on all of our behalfs that we think there’s a such thing as having all our shit together. Do we even know if that’s a thing?

So here we are wondering how to get to a place that feels more like us. How do we just stop following the rules, do what we love, live how we love, and thrive?

Let’s begin to unravel this twisted set of directions for living. Let’s let go of the shame about not creating success the way they showed us. Let’s let go of the fear that this is all there is. Let’s work together to create the reality that we’ve been envisioning, the one we thought was really just a beautiful, beautiful, dream.

Because I think it really can be that simple.