You Don’t Have to Be Miserable to Make a Different Choice

Do you ever find yourself wishing for misfortune to befall you so that you will be forced to do what you want to do but feel that you can’t do for one reason or another? Please tell me I’m not the only one.

For example, do you ever…

-Wish you would lose your job and be unable to find another one, so that you would be forced to pursue your dream of becoming a famous actor/writer/comedian/entrepreneur?

-Wish you would find out your partner was cheating on you so you’d have an excuse to leave them?

-Wish you would survive a terrible car accident and require months of rehab so you would be forced to drop out of school/quit your job/spend more time with family/focus on what is most important to you?

-Wish you would find out your house/apartment has black mold/was a meth house so you would be forced to move?

We want life to force us to make the decisions we want to make, to force us to take the action we want to take.

I realized I was doing this when I found myself secretly longing to have some crazy, unfortunate twist of fate force me to quit my job and stay at home with my kids. And I love my job. I love therapy. I just actually want to be a write-at-home mom while my kiddos are young. Because I want to.

But I felt like I needed something terrible to happen to force me to stay at home, so that I wouldn’t have any choice. Because it would be a terrible waste of money on a grad school education that I wouldn’t actually be using (to earn money with).

Similarly, a dear friend of mine frequently talks herself out of starting her own health/healing coaching business with the simple thought, “I like my job.”

And I’m like, that is wonderful that you like your job. Here is the thing: It is okay to choose something different because you want to. You don’t have to be miserable and want to die every day to quit your job. You don’t have to be angry and betrayed to leave an unhappy relationship.

You can leave because you want to. You can pursue your dreams because you want to and you choose to.

This is easier said than done, however, because making drastic (and small) decisions without the Universe cornering us into it involves a whole lot of responsibility-taking, which is just plain scary. 

So how do you do it?

Don’t ask me. I’m still hoping for the stars to magically align to make all my dreams come true. Although I’ve changed my mind about wanting unfortunate things to happen to me to make this possible.

Now I want everything to magically align without anything bad happening and with everything good happening. That sounds reasonable, right?

Well, probably not entirely. Because, you see, until I can take responsibility to commit to what I really want, and to take steps towards that, I will still be trying to dodge the overwhelming reality of my own freedom.

As long as I’m trying to put it all on fate/the universe/whatever, I’m still trying to live a grown-up life as a closet toddler who doesn’t want to face the fact that I’m the boss of me. Which is just plain silly.

So. What do I need to do?

Make choices.

Ideally the choices I want, though they will also have to be tempered by what is best for the other people in my life because hello, we don’t live in a vacuum. It’s not all about personal fulfillment all the time. It’s compromise sometimes because happy relationships are also fulfilling.

That’s it. That’s all the wisdom/word vomit I can offer on the subject. Make choices. Consider others when you do it. You can decide to do something just because you want to–your life doesn’t have to be a catastrophe to make a different choice.

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What are some of the craziest misfortunes you have secretly wished for? Share below!