The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

for me, to reread The Phantom Tollbooth for the fifteenth time, for instance, or to call my sister, I felt better able to tackle my to-do list. Fun is energizing.
    But I have to admit it—being Gretchen and accepting my true likes and dislikes bring me a kind of sadness. I will never visit a jazz club at midnight, hang out in artists’ studios, jet off to Paris for the weekend, or pack up to go fly-fishing on a spring dawn. I won’t be admired for my chic wardrobe or be appointed to a high government office. I’ll never stand in line to buy tickets to the Ring Cycle. I love fortune cookies and refuse to try foie gras.
    It makes me sad for two reasons. First, it makes me sad to realize my limitations. The world offers so much!—so much beauty, so much fun, and I am unable to appreciate most of it. But it also makes me sad because, in many ways, I wish I were different. One of my Secrets of Adulthood is “You can choose what you do; you can’t choose what you like to do.” I have a lot of notions about what I wish I liked to do, about the subjects and occupations that I wish interested me. But it doesn’t matter what I wish I were like. I am Gretchen.
    When I posted on my blog about the “sadness of a happinessproject,” I was astounded by the response. I’d thought it unlikely that my sentiments would resonate with anyone else, but dozens of people commented.
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    T his post really resonates with me. Because this is exactly what’s been on my mind lately.
    I’m currently going through a period of major change, and as always, they make you think.
    And I realize, I will never be an astronaut. I will never know what it’s like to be someone else, live a different life. Like you say, the world is so big, and I wonder if I’m missing out.
    I will never be an F-1 racer. I will never be a supermodel. I will never know what it’s like to fight in a war. To be a dancer on a cruise ship. To be a dealer in Las Vegas.
    Not because they are entirely impossible to achieve. But because I can’t dance (I tried). I can’t take G forces (I can’t even ride a roller coaster). I am not tall or pretty enough. I hate physics and maths, so I can’t be an astronaut.
    This is less about whether I CAN actually do any of those things, but more about whether I’d actually want to do them. Or to be dedicated enough to work towards them.
    I will never be that person.
     
    It has taken me decades to even accept that the hairstyles I like can’t be done with my actual hair.
     
    I don’t remember the exact date, but I remember the incident very clearly:
    One day—I was about 34 years old—it dawned on me: I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can’t DO EVERYTHING I want.
    Life-changing.
     
    I think most of us feel the same way. I’m a college student, majoring in English and trying to figure out what path to take. I’m an English major because I like to read. There are so many things I can do that involvebooks, but I’m undecided. I think almost daily I grieve for my limitations (I will probably never set foot in any club), but my passions give me such joy.
    I followed your lead and one of my commandments is to “Be Catherine.” I would rather spend the night reading a great book than dancing in a club, I love children’s books and check out dozens every time I go to the library. I think by knowing who we are as people and being ourselves, we can start making the world better.
     
    I remember when I turned 25, and realised I’d never be a Rhodes Scholar. The fact that I’d never wanted to be such, never applied or even looked into it, was beside the point. It was the closing of an option. I’m now looking down the barrel of not having the opportunity to have children. Always thought I’d think about it/decide what I wanted when I met my future husband. Still haven’t met him (if he exists!) but time waits for no ovary.
    It’s part of being human, isn’t it? And more particularly so in the world we live in—we see so much of what other people do, have, are…But then there’s the majority of humanity who have SO MUCH LESS than us—we are the rich, privileged west. That usually sobers me up when I start comparing my material situation to that of others who have X Y or Z.
     
    I look at people ten years younger than me earning 6-figure incomes in corporate jobs and I think “I wish I wanted to do that,” but I’m an artist at heart and my path to financial security is a different one. I fought it for years and