I had a dream today about being a billionaire so I followed the purportedly reliable "how to be successful" steps on Wiki-How (an open source website instructing step-by-step directions). Surprisingly, it did NOT work. But, if conquering the inexplicable in our lives were that simple, then (unrelated but) we could hypothetically snap the US's thirty-one trillion debt away, or engineer compact human wings. So I suppose the result is sensible.
My foolish dreams aside, I feel as if today's internet, especially social media, shares the "needs" of individual success as a to-do list, as it did for me on Wiki-How. Then our minds subconsciously begin implementing unachievable requirements to meet to be content.
As I scrolled through TikTok between my Psychology and Biology class today in the Library, all I would see is well-dressed fit women in mansions and smiles. With their fifty-million followers, and a good-looking boyfriend, she seems...happy? "I want that," I would think as I lay down on my bed at 11pm in my dorm with still ten things on my to-do list I could not get to that day. In my mind, I have always believed that happiness of fulfilled individuals stems from their achievements. Yet, such accomplishments feel unreachable to someone struggling in simple freshman courses, as me.
Despite all the resources available to us— two-hundred petabytes of information loaded onto Google everyday— a definitive guide to happiness remains elusive (for reference two-hundred petabytes is one hundred trillion pages of standard printed text). Perhaps this is a wake-up call for me. That life journey, apparent but overlooked, is not mapped out on a universal blueprint, but is individually designed. As I come to my final sentence, I realize that maybe, the pursuit of happiness is less about reaching the destination but more about embracing our unique paths and our detours.
For more thoughts on searching for answers, check out my poem "How to change my life" in my gallery.