On Doing What You Want
In all our hearts is yearning and desire. For the mountains. For the sea. For a person. For a life. We long and we yearn, but so rarely do we act. Instead, we look at those around us and tell ourselves lies: they are happy, we say. And we feel wrong to not be the same. But what is the truth behind their smiles? And what happens behind the closed doors of the homes of those we admire?
Briefly, I was allowed into the life of one such person. I went with her to a bar, it was my first time. We went with her family to dance, also for my first time. Neither of us drink, but her family did. And I watched them dance, in the throngs of drunks, shoulder to shoulder, music too loud to speak. People breaking glasses. People passed out on the seats. Her drunk cousin repeatedly trying to get me to come talk to some girls. I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on there. My friend, her family, and all these other people. What was the point?
We sat down after, in a second bar, where I went outside with her brother, also drunk, to talk. He told me about his hopes and dreams of finding a creative community in the US, about how he wanted to be a writer, about the problems with the only group of creatives he had in Iceland. I offered my help, and he said I could come over some time to that end. The next time I met my friend, she told me that nobody remembered what happened. They were too drunk. To say I felt disappointed would be an understatement.
I also came to learn of her struggles. They can be summarized in that she needed to send a message to her supervisor for work. After months, she never sent it despite needing to. The point is this: these were the people who went to a bar and danced in drunk crowds. These were the people who did not take matters into their own hands. The only reason I went to that bar was for my friend. I’ll never go back to a place like that. That is my choice. As was giving up my life and everyone and everything I ever knew to come to Iceland. I would not dare say there’s an inherently wrong way to spend time, rather I will point to the environment: there are better places to dance and talk. Without getting so drunk as to forget a meaningful conversation.
What distinguishes us? — those who would rather walk in a forest from those who would thus drink and party? In a word, escapism. In a complex, lack of will, perhaps lost to events of the past. Not that having fun is the problem or that walking is better, it is rather a matter of motivations and desires. Simply put, how many people have offered to buy me a drink? And how many have invited me on walks or hikes, or to simply get coffee? How many have made offers to begin with? That is the problem.
In a world of others, who are we? A mirror becomes to fix our appearance rather than to engage with our reflection. So we don’t do what we want. We do what we glean from others. Talks of hopes and dreams end only in hopes and dreams. Who would risk their world to pursue them? Who would distance themself from a friend, no matter the cost to their own happiness? We fear to be alone, to be misunderstood, to not belong, to not fit in, to be unhappy, to fail. We fear and fear until nothing happens — nothing but “fun.” And who is smiling in the end?
No one can speak for anyone else, but I’ve heard the talks myself. My aforementioned friend wanted to write shows. Is she writing? No. Her brother wanted to find a community in the US and write books. But he’s still here in Iceland. I’ve met other people who want to start things: start their own groups, start businesses, begin hobbies, study, etc. But nobody takes action on their plans. “The right people,” I hear a lot. I said that myself, too: that I needed the right people. What kind of people will you find on a crowded, drunk dance floor? Certainly not the type you would want to build something with.
The truth is very simple: do it, and you will find them. After I published my first book, in spite of my hesitations to ever share my writing, I found a new world opened up to me — by opening myself to the world. Someone found my work and reached out. We became good friends. He’s one of the only people I can talk to about certain things. And how did I find him? He found me. In the same way that my actions of giving everything up and moving to Iceland put me in a position to find other people. Action. I risked everything. I lost everything. And I rebuilt everything.
To do what you want does not require strength, not even courage. Doing what you want requires self-awareness. It requires you to accept that if you are unhappy, then you will never be happy unless you take action to become happy. It requires the awareness that you and you alone have the power to do anything whatsoever. If the group you seek does not exist, then it is your responsibility to create it — because you can’t guarantee that anyone else will. To overcome fear and anxiety is to realize that nothing actually matters. So long as you try, it’s okay to fail.
Do you fear your book will be bad? Write it, and accept the criticism to improve your next one. Do you fear judgment for your self-expressions? Then express yourself, and let those who judge you make themselves known. Send your messages, make your invitations, start your businesses. If it all fails, you can try again or at least find peace in moving on. What matters is embracing risk, not avoiding it. The same is true for the self: embrace yourself and don’t avoid the solitude of your mind. Don’t fill each moment with activity and each silence with music. Don’t dance in drunken crowds for the sake of company. Don’t take smiling selfies as signs of others’ happiness. Put aside the world, and allow yourself to simply be. Avoiding yourself will never result in action. Nor will you ever know where to begin if you don’t even know who you are.