A 26 year old woman recently took to Facebook to state on how having cool hobbies, exciting social life, successful career, interesting romantic partners, blissful marriage, adorable kids are totally overrated. She even stated on how she preferred to be bored and happiness is overrated.
Here is the full story.
What is happiness? Where can I buy happiness?
Just a little background: I’m a 26 year old woman and I come from a small family, which consists of my dad and sister. I have a bf of 7 years and I have been working for a few years since graduating.
My sister is a housewife and she has two adorable kids and a loving husband. She would often encourage me to get married and have kids because that’s her definition of happiness. However, I think I’m not financially ready to get married and have kids.
My friends are fun-loving and career-minded. They often talk about their hobbies and overseas travel experiences. Last time, they would often encourage me to join their hobbies or travel overseas with them because that’s their definition of happiness. But I think hobbies and overseas travels are too extravagant.
My life has been very routine, basically work from 9 to 6 and then go home eat and sleep. I would meet my bf twice a week, usually for dinner or movies and as for friends, usually once a month for a chat at my place.
Sometimes, I browse my social media and see everyone having the time of their life… dinner at some fine dining restaurant, boyfriend propose to them, job promotion celebration, girls’ night out, boys’ night out, etc. Everyone seems like they are in the pursuit of happiness and they want to be happy and lead a happy life. They look happy and they are having so much fun and all.
And then I asked myself, “Am I happy?” And I realised my life is boring because it’s so routine and I don’t ever do fun, meaningful or exciting things like what everyone else is doing. I suddenly feel a sense of emptiness as I realise there is nothing to look forward to in my life.
Everyday I wake up, go to work, eat, sleep, repeat. In comparison to everyone else, it seems like I’m missing out on a lot of fun and I’m not leading a happy and fulfilling life. I don’t have a successful career, I don’t have an exciting social life, I don’t have hobbies. My job is boring, my life is boring, I am boring, and I often feel bored. I then started questioning myself. Is it really so important to feel happy? So what if I don’t feel happy? So what if I feel bored most of the time?
Why do we always want to be happy? Why can’t we learn to accept that it’s okay to not be happy?
Feeling bored? That’s okay. Feeling empty? That’s okay too. You don’t have to be happy all the time. Cool hobbies, exciting social life, successful career, interesting romantic partners, blissful marriage, adorable kids…Sure, these are symbols of happiness and they are pretty awesome and admirable. But right now I think I’m okay with feeling bored. Because feeling bored is a privilege to be thankful for. And happiness is overrated.