I have the perfect life, and I have never felt more lost.
From the outside, to the naked eye (lol), it looks like I’m living the dream. I have a great job, I have my husband, I have my friends, I live in an amazing city. But internally, I’m not feeling happy. I feel like I’ve let go of everything. I’ve surrendered myself to the flow of life and I’m just taking it day to day. I’m not making any big plans, I’m just letting the current take me. I know in a lot of movies and books they say to do this, to stop stressing and just let life happen. But I think that only works if you do it for a limited amount of time, to relax. Not for the past five years. At some point it just feels like you’ve taken the back seat on your own journey, and it feels like rotting.
For the past five years, maybe more, maybe less, I’ve let life pass and just watched it from far away. To be honest, it hasn’t passed that badly. It’s been a normal life, the kind you’d expect, but that’s not what I want. Like Barney in How I Met Your Mother, I want my life to be legendary. I want it to be epic. Even if it’s the small things that bring me joy, I want something different. I want more.
Why I’m Starting This Anonymous Blog
By creating this blog, I have no intention of teaching anyone how to live their life. Heck, I need someone to tell me what to do. Who am I to try to tell others? But I thought that by starting this blog, at least I’m taking a step toward doing something. At least I’m finally doing something instead of constantly thinking about doing something. Maybe writing down my thoughts will help me move forward and actually follow the things I want. Or at least make it clear what I actually want, lol.
To be completely honest, I have no idea what I’m doing with my life, what my plan is, or what I want to do, and I’m doing my best not to stress about that huge fact. So instead of overthinking it, I decided to start this blog and let my thoughts out. I kept thinking about starting a YouTube channel or an Instagram account, but first and most importantly, I’m scared of being judged on camera, especially by the people around me who know me. Second, I feel like by staying anonymous, I can share whatever I’m feeling. My deepest thoughts, the ones I’d normally keep to myself out of fear of judgment. Maybe at some point I’ll get the courage to do that. But instead of constantly postponing what I want to do because I’m scared, I figured: if I’m too scared to take that big of a step, I might not continue at all. So let’s start small. Like a blog.
What I Want From This Personal Growth Journey
There are a few things I want out of this blog.
1. A place to organize my thoughts. I’m a master at documenting my life. I use an app called BeReal that prompts me to take a picture every day, and I’ve been using it for three years. I also keep a journal called One Line a Day, which I’ve written in for four years. I love documenting my daily life, and I think that’s part of why I want my life to feel epic. I want something worth documenting.
2. Community. Even though I already journal and document my life through other means, I love sharing it with others. Again, as Barney says in How I Met Your Mother, some moments are only great if you can share them with your friends. I know that kind of goes against enjoying things on your own, but it’s not really like that. Some moments you enjoy alone, and some you just have to share. Humans are naturally social creatures who live in communities, so it’s in our nature to want to connect with others.
3. Inspiration, in both directions. I know I’m not particularly inspiring at the moment, lol. I know how people see someone without a clear purpose, and that’s not something people usually want to follow. Everyone likes successful people, people who know exactly what they want out of life. But I feel like most of us are like me, or maybe I’m just projecting. Still, I’m hoping that by starting this blog, I’ll first find some purpose through writing, and second, find support from a community. I want to connect with like minded people. I want them to inspire me, and I want to inspire them. I’ve always envied bloggers and creators who can easily ask their audience for restaurant recommendations or life advice and get real answers back almost instantly.
4. Documenting the process, not just the result. We usually only see successful people on social media after they’ve already made it. We don’t see what they went through, what they actually did, or how they got there. In my hope of living a more purposeful life and figuring out some kind of code to life, I want to document my steps along the way. So if I ever do become successful (fingers crossed), people will be able to find my full story, not just the highlight reel. Flattering myself much, lol.
I might want more from this blog in the future, but for now, these four reasons are enough.
The First Real Step
My first step is actually setting this blog up. I’ve read a few articles online about how to do it. I need to buy hosting, and I’m not sure yet if I want to pay for anything right now. So my first move was, ironically, postponing a decision (which I know is already a little counterproductive) and writing this in a Word document instead of publishing it directly. Hopefully it’ll be posted as a real blog very soon.
This is day one. No matter how small the step, it’s still a step.