Everyone has a cause. Some people devote their lives to making the lives of others better or to protecting or preserving the lives of those less fortunate than themselves. Others find a more selfish, but equally inspiring, purpose in life and use their ambitions to drive them to the point they want to be in life. There are countless other goals a person may wish to achieve in their short life, and each one is important in its own way. However, we have come to place far too much importance in the achieving of these dreams. We have created a school of thought that simply states that if you do not do what you wanted to in life than you have failed, but this creed is a gross distortion of what life should be, and has resulted in countless misconceptions and poorly made judgments.

We are introduced to the concept of being able to do whatever we want to in life at a very early age, and as we grow up many of the role models we may have only further emphasize this statement, which seems too good to be true at even the youngest and hopeful of ages. This is not to say that children are lied to as they develop and filled with false hope and dreams that can never be reached, because this hyperconfident kind of thinking can play a large part in motivating a child to do great things. However, there are so many euphorically satisfying alternatives to “greatness.”

We do not have to inspire a nation or make the world a better place for mankind. We do not have to obtain impressive wages or bask in the materialistic riches of civilization. We must do one thing in this life before we die – we must be happy. Some achieve happiness through helping others, while others achieve happiness through a career society deems “successful.” Others feel happiness in the sheer simple yet intricate nature of life, and need nothing but a heartbeat to feel happy. We have no right to determine what should make someone happy, let alone enforce such a standard on an individual, claiming that the only other option is failure. It obviously isn’t always consciously done, which is perhaps why it is so widespread throughout our culture; an innocent means of motivation turned to inadvertent brainwashing.

Every living person on this planet is entitled to their happiness, as long as the pursuit of their happiness does not wrongfully interfere with another individual’s quest for fulfillment. The only lives we have to judge are our own, and many have lost sight of that. There are so many beautiful alternatives to the images of success we are given as children, and each one is just as purposeful as the next. Instead of judging the choices others have made we must turn that assessment inward and look upon ourselves to see if what we’ve been striving for so many years to achieve will actually make us happy, or will leave us a bitter person full of regret. Our purpose on this earth is to find our own meaning for ourselves — existentialism in its most optimistic form. We must live our lives knowing that the choices we make will find us a much better and happier person by the time our life is over. It does not matter in the slightest how others view your lifestyle, as long as it leaves you with a sense of fulfillment and an appreciation of the wonder of life.