I Want to Be Marvelous

An honest view

“It’s terrifying to be invested in life, it’s one of the most terrifying things you can do, because you know, inevitably, at the end, you’re gonna lose. It’s also the thing that makes your life really worth anything” — Claire Lucia Wineland

I sat, in my office, staring out into the cloudy countryside, in awe of this person I’d never met. I guess that’s the privilege of the internet. You get to meet people every day, people that change your life, without them even knowing you exist.

Some of those, like Claire, have left this world and yet, she’s still having a profound impact on it. Incredible really.

As I sat there, her words lingered in my head. You see of late, I’ve found myself falling down the rabbit hole again. Questions, endless questions. My brain convinces me of truths I know to be false.

Maybe it’s because, in the end, I know I’ll lose.

I’ve been obsessed with my career from the age of 14.

I’ve actively run towards my future. I was desperate to get out of university and enter the real world. But I remember the day I sat in the foyer of the real world — I felt like I’d taken the wrong exit.

I explored the new world I’d been desperate to join and realized, I’d not thought about things at all. Not really. I was more concerned about my LinkedIn profile than understanding what I liked to do and how I liked to spend my time.

It was years before I figured that out.

As a graduate, I don’t think there’s ever a conversation about what you want to do with your life, the general consensus is that upwards is the only destination.

But I slowly realized after years of thinking the top spot was where I wanted to be, that maybe I’d got everything wrong. I watched in awe as people found their spots in the world, glowing, they were marvelous at what they did.

I wanted to be marvelous.

I just didn’t know what it took.

Your spot in the world

There was this woman I’ll never forget.

She stood at the front of the room commanding the audience. She was confident, warm, engaging, and marvelous. She had it. She’d found it.

Her space in the world, fit her perfectly.

She was so good. So good in fact that you could see people thinking ‘why isn’t she my boss?’ But in truth, I don’t think she wanted to be. She could. She absolutely could.

But she’d found her spot and she was marvelous.

And that’s what I wanted. I wanted to feel the comfort, the cushion, the belonging. I wanted to be in the spot that would perfectly fit all I had to offer the world. I just had no idea where to find it.

Falling

“Did you hear about so-and-so? Yeah, he’s just got a huge promotion, he’s leading a team of 11 now.”

Gulp. My stomach would drop. It’s funny how so few words can have such a monumental impact on your day.

Desperation would follow. Then the questions. Who was I? What did I want to do with my life? Was I wasting time? Am I doing all this wrong? Of course, I didn’t have the answers. How do you answer questions like that? It’s nearly impossible to quantify if you’re wasting time or doing life wrong. How would you ever know?

Still, I’d chew over these questions. Trying to find any sense of order in my fragile mind. What was it? Where was my spot?

On Happiness

I once read that people who chase happiness are the least likely to be happy. Something about the constant chasing, the constant questioning ‘am I happy?’ made them more aware of their unhappiness or maybe it was the questioning.

At the same time, we’re taught that whatever gets measured gets managed. With that thinking, you’d assume the opposite of the evidence above, you’d think the people who obsessed over their happiness were the happiest of all.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about happiness as it relates to a career. Most recently, my time has been taken up by feelings of inadequacy. That maybe I’m not doing things quite right, maybe I don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe I haven’t quite found my fit.

Or maybe I’ll never be happy.

On success

What makes a successful career? And does that make a successful life? I hate the idea of getting to the end of my life and finding the gaps, the regrets, and the opportunities I missed.

I want to be marvelous. I want to find my spot. I want to dance in it for years.

I think, if I’m honest, I know the answer. The answer is to try. To invest. To jump feet first into life. That, the true pursuit of that, is all you’ve got.

To invest in your life is terrifying. To seek your spot. To find your marvellousness. It’s scary.

But if you do that, you can never truly do life wrong, because you are chasing your marvellousness. And that’s the only thing you can do.

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