But deep inside, I knew that my weird wishlist didn’t capture the true desires of my heart. Sure, there was part of me that wanted to gorge on whatever my stomach desired. Perhaps, I even wanted to embark on some crazy adventures to the forbidden land of sexual frenzy with the coolest girl in town. But, fantasies come and go; they are not indispensable to my happiness. They offer a temporary relief from painful reality, but they are also like detour, distraction, and escapism—never the solution.
That subway ride with April, however, did teach me several things.
First, as I kept adding more things to my list, I realized that my desires were all over the place. In fact, I ended up writing down 187 things I believed would make me happy. It’s cool if a second-grader wants to become a news anchor or the president or an astronaut or a makeup artist, but if a grown-up has such disperse ambitions, it’s not cute at all. It’s fair to assume that he is delusional, confused, vain, or all of the above. As J.K. Rowling pointed out in her 2008 commencement speech at Harvard, we become calmer and happier when we are stripped of all the inessentials and learn to focus all of our energy on the few things that actually matter to us. Not when we indulge our every wish and craving. At least 80% of quarter-life crises, in my opinion, are caused by our inability to simplify and remove all the unnecessary desires from our lives.
Second, happiness basically is a certain state of mind that I enjoy dwelling in. Over time, my brain remembers what it felt like to be in that kind of emotional zone and it builds neural circuits accordingly. How my brain gets wired, in turn, determines my aura or facial expressions, which then determine the kind of energy I bring into other people’s lives when I interact with them. This is why I now believe that figuring out how to train my brain to be happy in my own unique way should be my life’s priority. Not only does it give me a clearer sense of who I am, but it is the most wonderful gift I can ever give to the world.
With these two goals in mind, I thought long and hard to come up with a simpler list. And today, when April comes back from work, I can’t wait to share it with her, especially because she told me she is going to show me hers, too!
As I stare at the list, I realize that yes, this is who I am—all the good, the wonderful, the terrible, and the downright degenerate. Instead of pursuing some high-minded talks on “my true calling” or “purpose of life,” I need to start here. Like my fingerprint, it’s unique and inimitable. No other person in the world would have come up with the same list as I did, and it holds all the secrets I need to know to become happy.
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Millennial's Monologue: Secret Dramas in Our Hearts & Souls
Non-FictionREAL LIFE STORY: I was a stereotypical high achiever in an Ivy League school who got suspended for plagiarism; April was a sweet girl who worked in a high-end prostitution ring. We were both in our early twenties when we became friends. A perfect...
