During my whole Happiness Project quest there were a lot of truths I had to come clean about in order to make this project work. One of the things I had to let go of was My List. At one point or another, everyone has a list. You know, the By-The-Time-I’m-at-a-Certain-Age List I should be at Point X in my life.
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Yeah that’s the one.
I made the list as a way of giving myself a deadline. You’re supposed to be filled with certain milestones every decade, right? 20, 30, 40? It gave me something to strive for, to work for, to reach for, but when I didn’t get where I was supposed to be, well what was I supposed to do? Stuff my face with chocolate? Yes. Definitely yes. But why the disappointment? I should have accounted for some setbacks, right?
Here’s the thing. I didn’t think I was going to fail, so when I did I thought holy crap, what should I do now? Couldn’t do anything but let go. And dude that was hard. I turned 30 and that was that. There were a few items left on the list. Unfinished. I hadn’t made the deadline, and letting go of it made me feel like a failure. This is where the chocolate came into play. The disappointment of not completing My List by 30, probably gave birth to my love affair with chocolate, which I guess was a nice silver lining.
But as I continued reading the Happiness Project I realized that I didn’t really have to let go of My List, I just had to extend the deadline. We get extensions all the time, why not on this, right? I mean for people who get it all done by 30, 35, or 40 well woo-hoo and great for you. But for the rest of us there’s Plan B — The Extension. Now some people may look down on it. So there are times when you get down on the dumps, because you hear all these stories of people getting to Point X a lot sooner than they originally planned. No extension needed. But then I saw this commercial and it gave me hope. I thought dude … it’s on. I mean I’m not close to 50, but it’s still on.
I could still chase those same goals and those same dreams, I could still pursue my passions, and probably experience all kinds of adventures in the process. But I’d still be able to cross off items from The List. It would just take a little longer. Passion doesn’t run out. It’s still beating inside you, like a heartbeat. The only difference is that I would no longer follow the blueprints from my original plan. I’d have to take on an alternate route. A Plan B. But just because it’s Plan B, doesn’t make it any less of a woo-hoo moment. A woo-hoo is a woo-hoo no matter what the timeline. Realizing that there would still be high-fives and chocolate waiting for me made it a little easier to feel less crappy about not completing the 30s List. This just meant that my 40s and 50s list would be more rewarding, more adventurous and requiring more Glucosamine.
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