I’m halfway through my twenties and I think the hardest realization I’ve had to come by is that sometimes the things you really want, aren’t the things you need. The biggest most significant lesson I learned during my year in Chicago was that sometimes, no matter how much you want something to fit in your life, it just doesn’t. You can put all of your time and effort into something, and it still won’t work out. You can’t force the pieces together, sometimes they just don’t fit. And as frustrating as that is and as helpless as that makes you feel, it’s okay. Change is often perceived as negative and it feels negative sometimes, most of the time, but it usual isn’t. It’s space for growth. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed or that you’ve wasted your time, it just means you pursued something your heart and mind thought were right for you, but they weren’t. You didn’t need them.

Nothing you do is ever a waste of your time if you learn the lesson it serves. Learning from failures helps you create the life you need (not just want), surrounded by the people you need (not just want). Being around people or jobs who bring you joy and happiness and don’t make you question your worth or what you need. And it’s not always easy to tell who or what that is.

You can chose to ignore those scenarios and keep fighting for the things you want. But deep down you won’t feel fulfilled if you continue to surround yourself in locations, jobs, or relationships that you don’t need. If all these factors don’t make you happy then you don’t need them to be apart of your life. If you continue to force things in your life, because of outside perception, or because you deem it’s meant to be, you’ll be left feeling empty.

Do I need you in my life to be happy? No. Do I need to make a ton of money in a sell out job to be happy? No. Do I need to keep forcing myself to make Chicago work in order to be happy? No.

Those answers might seem obvious reading them now, but they weren’t a few months ago for me. It is not easy to tell the things you need versus what you want. I thought for sure all those things were going to make me happy. I wanted all those things to work out so desperately in order to feel validation from other people or to fulfill the image I had set in my mind. But they left me feeling empty, and like I had failed, once again. That image of what my future was going to look like was not fulfilled. But life doesn’t need to look seemingly perfect to the outside eye or to your own. So what if I’m not on a fast track to marriage. So what if I’m not in a stable job using my degree working toward my career. So what if I don’t have my own apartment furnished with furniture I own. Life is messy. I’m trying to create my own happiness for myself. So what if that looks ugly.

Sometimes you just have to take a step back at your life and look at everything in it and decide what you need and what is truly working for you. It’s hard to cut out all that other stuff based on money, love, comfort, or validation but taking the step to cut out those wants will give you what you need. You have to look at your life through a different lense and make tough decisions. And it’s going to be really really hard, and it will sometimes break your heart. You’ll have to put yourself out there and take risks, only to feel temporarily doubtful and sad. But what you need are the things and people that compliment you and what you stand for. And as hard as it is to cut things out that don’t do that for you. You have to do it. Otherwise those things will eat you alive and change who you are. You need jobs and relationships that make you feel empowered and fulfilled, instead of ones that have you questioning yourself worth.

It’s good to be determined and go after the things that you want. Putting all your effort into something you want to desperately is a good thing. You just need to realize when what you wanted wasn’t what you needed. You need to recognize that and be able to let it go.

“My point is, it’s not cut and dry, black and white, good and bad. It lives where everything lives: somewhere in the middle.” August: Osage County