The One Thing That We Let Destroy Our Everyday Happiness

Play out this scenario with me...

You're 21.

I'm 23.

Two entirely different worlds I might say. At 21, you are a lot more carefree, you can drink alcohol (legally!) and you may still be unsure of yourself in what direction your life is taking you. You have a couple guys you hook up with then and there - but nothing too serious. Life isn't too serious and you're loving it.

At 23, you're a bit more serious. You have learned to manage time a bit better. You may even decide to stay in because you've been working your entry level job from 9-5 and don't feel like getting plastered before waking up again at 7:45 am for work. You should be moved out with a serious boyfriend and a full time job, according to society.

Whether you are 21 or 23 each day you wake up, you complete your daily routine. Over and over and over....

Life gets repetitive. Trust me, I know. Living in spinal cord injury land, I have been forced to do the same things over and over - usually not getting any results until way later down the road.

When you aren't getting what you want in life or things aren't nesecarrily going your way, you tend to compare yourself to other people. It's especially easy to do that nowadays with everyone being obsessed with their phones. We can Facebooks stalk the guy we used to like in high school and see that he graduated from wherever and is now engaged. In that moment you immediately look back at your age and be like "Wow, he's only 22 and I am 23 and am no where near ready to be engaged/married."

It's kind of like really stressful.

The more and more I thought about these things, I found it was really kind of bringing me down in my days. Some days I started to wake up and was thinking about other people and what they are doing and thinking how I wish I was doing things like that. Like super random things whether it's bike riding, reading on the beach in Greece and etc. But I couldn't figure out why these little or big things were bothering me so much. Then it hit me.

The reason why I was feeling anxious about myself was because I was letting my "Mental Life Timeline" destroy what was good in my life at the moment.

What is a mental life timeline you may ask? It's the timeline we build in our heads for what we think our lives should be like at a certain period in them. Like at 21, you should have graduated college and at 23, you should be engaged and at 25 you should be pregnant....blah blah blah.

These are all these we put in our heads by what happens around us. And here's the good news, it is OKAY if those things aren't in your life right now. You know why? No one is the same in life. We don't take the same life paths as our neighbor, our best friend or our siblings. That is what makes life so dang special. We are all unique in our own ways - so our mental timeline's should all be different.

The point of this post is to tell you that it's okay to feel insecure at times in your life. You are constantly growing and changing - and so are your goals and dreams. Just because you aren't a 4.0 student, doesn't mean your not smart. Just because you didn't strive in school like some of your classmates doesn't mean you're never going to be successful at anything. Just because you aren't engaged at 23, doesn't mean you're never going to find love. I want everyone to know that it's okay to have goals and get motivation from people and things but don't ever be ashamed of yourself for not having something that someone else has.

If I had a timeline for what things should be like in my life right now, I would be going all kinds of crazy.

Don't let that timeline in your head ruin your happiness today by thinking of all the things you don't have. Someone out there in the world is jealous of you and everything you do have.

Last thing, I think we all forget about life is that it is short. We are only on earth for a short period of time. So don't waste a second of it by comparing yourself to someone - that is one second you can never ever get back.