being happy: some information on this one
15 February, 2012 § 1 Comment
I was thinking recently about why I’m happy right now and also more generally. This is a thing that self-absorbed jerks in their mid-twenties do, or at least I am inclined to believe that they do this this based on my own experience, which I’ll generalize to all folks since I have no theory of mind. If they are not doing this, then they are thinking about why they are miserable. Same same.
Anyway, I was trying to pinpoint exactly what is all so good about bein a folk these days. It’s not Cairo, since I’ve been very unhappy in Cairo before–in times of when I was being super lame. It’s not my family and friends that have changed; they are all boss, but it’s all the same friends as in the past, except for some new ones also, true, but still. Perhaps it’s indulging in such self-serving self-reflection that makes the difference! (No seriously they say that all this self-reflection and self-tracking and whatever else is a factor, dudes.)
No, seriously, I think it’s mostly that, this semester, this moment, today, tomorrow, I’m being the thing I wanted to be when I grew up. Pretty sweet, friends! When I was a tiny baby no bigger than a monkey, I wanted to grow up and be a history professor (well, to be fair, this was more like when I was a tiny baby in high school, as when I was no bigger than a monkey I think I wanted to be an artist and marine biologist and everything, see here). Now I’m no professor, I’ll give you that (but don’t tell my students), but I am teaching two college courses and the students call me Dr. Amanda and the sticker by the door to my “office” (i.e., desk in a conference room) says “Dr. Amanda Propst.” So it’s close enough, if you ask me, which you implicitly were by reading this. I have a faculty ID. Close enough. I always wanted to do this, and now I am.
No matter what I do with the days I got left earthside (which can be anything! cool! being an adult is the best thing ever), even if it’s not being a real grown-up history professor (and realistically, it’s unlikely that I will grow up and be a real professor, since we’ll probably dismantle higher education in some years), I did it. I am being the thing I wanted to be since forever. From this moment on, I can’t not have been a history professor at least in the broad sense. Ha! So I can do whatever else now.
Let’s go places!
Greetings, Bonus Daughter! Reading this post gave me a lift. Parental units like us place large emotional bets on the hope that our offspring units will attain a degree of personal purpose and satisfaction. What you are feeling is the connection between potential and actualization. Like my theory of what is funny, I’d maintain that it’s our awareness of the connection that triggers the endorphins. So this is happy news, indeed. Everyone truly connected with you can feel it too.