I refuse to hate my life

the moment i knew…

I was sitting across from a friend at Olive Garden discussing my recent college graduation and what comes next, and I nearly knocked my glass over from all of my wild hand-talking. “There is so much pressure to get a 9-5 job, sell my soul to my work, and never question what it is I’m actually meant to contribute to the world. I don’t want to do social media for a plumber! But I refuse to hate my life. I just refuse.”

Goodness gracious, those words hit me like a brick wall.

To be clear: it isn’t social media or plumbers that would make me hate my life. We need plumbers. We need people working 9-to-5 jobs. Our world would crumble without the billions of people who literally keep our societies turning.

What would make me hate my life is conforming to expectations placed upon me instead of pursuing a career and life that give me a sense of belonging, meaning, and fulfillment. For some, this looks like a structured job, a hands-on, dirty job, or maybe not a job at all, but their role in their family, churches, or hobbies. All of these things are beautiful.

In the last few weeks, I have spent upwards of 50 hours working on redesigning my website. There were countless panicked tears along the way and several moments I questioned if I should have just stayed put on my less sophisticated platform. Nothing went as planned. Step-by-step instructions followed as precisely as possible never worked on the first try. I forgot to transfer my domain, and I searched for a new design for more than 12 hours. It all sucked.

But…I loved it.

It was the kind of work that fulfilled a need deep in my soul to create something meaningful.

I’ve scrolled through page upon page of job listings in the last two months, and thus far, every single one has instilled fear into me: fear that the career I want to pursue doesn’t exist here or anywhere, fear that I’m not qualified for the work I want to be doing, and fear that I’ll fold under the immense societal pressure to grind myself up like coffee beans just so I can contribute to a company with a rich owner and poor employees.

Just writing that makes me sick.

I refuse to hate my life, which means I refuse to succumb to the pressure of personal branding, paying my dues, or proving myself. I refuse to sell my soul to the proverbial (and literal) Man. I will not force my nature into a box with no air holes. I frickin’ frackin’ refuse.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that I cannot simply jump into the dream career. I’m not foolish; I’m stubborn, driven, powerful, and incredibly determined.

Determined to love my life, you see, because I have already grown weary of the meaninglessness of work that does not ignite a fire in my soul.

It is incredibly counter-cultural to operate from a mindset that demands joy and abundance. Everywhere we turn, we are inundated with flashing neon warnings that scream “get ahead or die trying.”

I refuse to play the rat race game. Because to heed the warnings is to submit my agency and agree to impossible terms and conditions. To play is to lose, to be controlled, to be owned. To play is to hate your life.

I will fail

There is no doubt that my refusal will be met with trials strong enough to drown me. The sacrifices I will have to make, and the suffering I may encounter, are absolutely going to crush me. But I would rather be crushed resisting a life I’m not meant to live than to suffocate in that box with no air.

So when failure comes and I begin to question if it’s really worth it to keep resisting, I hope someone will smack me and send me back to the moments when, at 3 a.m. in a dimly lit, silent bedroom, I finally figured out how to do the thing I’d been getting wrong for three days.

Or maybe the moment I woke up from a dream with a clear sense of my purpose: to create and share said creation with the members of the world who are still racing, so that maybe just one person will wake up and see that they have sold themselves at a clearance price. They have sold their passions, purpose, and dreams for a mere paycheck and list of tasks that cannot fulfill them. They will remain empty, longing for meaning, until someone smacks them with their moment of truth.

The hope inside of me

If I can provide that moment of truth for even one person, I will have succeeded.

Naive? Probably. Idealistic? Definitely. Worth it anyway? I have never been more sure.

After all, John Lennon sang it best:

“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”

So join me, or don’t, but know this: I refuse to hate my life…because I don’t have to. I wasn’t made to hate my life and neither were you. The road ahead of me will be messy, and it will be terrifying. I’m going to fall down and screw up and get a lot wrong. But I refuse to regret my life or give in to the demands of a society that doesn’t own my soul.

Dream on, friends.

Nikki