NaNoWriMo time again!  And, as I often do, I’m going to use this month to encourage myself to write more.  My goal is to write every day this month.  Wish me luck!

For today’s writing, I think I want to touch on the importance of choosing and following your own path.

On my dad’s side I come from a long line of people who were trained as engineers – both of my grandparents, my aunt, and my father all are/were trained as engineers (my grandmother didn’t get to use it much, due to spending time raising her kids).  So, suffice to say, both my sister and I got pressure to go in that direction as well.  But, here’s the thing…neither of us did.

And I think we’re both the happier for that.  We both chose fields that interested us, that excited us intellectually.

If I had followed my father’s path, at least career wise, I would have been miserable.  Mathematics and design never excited me like they did him, his sister, and my grandparents.

I chose and continue to choose based on the idea that I want to maximize my happiness first, generally.  I only have a limited time on this planet – why choose something that will make me less than happy?  Granted, sometimes depression gets in the way of this, obscures my path and obscures even the meaning of happiness.

I choose relationships with multiple people because, a great majority of the time, it makes me happy.  I choose to stay at my job, even though it doesn’t pay super well, because, overall, it makes me happy.  I choose to medicate my seasonal depression and ADHD, so I can see through the obscuring veil that depression and distractions can place on happiness.  I choose to work on my emotions, to learn how to process how I’m feeling because, I know that it gives me more opportunities for happiness.

If I had gone the path that my parents had, I wouldn’t have had the chance to explore my joy.