Don't think, just do.

You can ask the universe for signs all you want. Ultimately, we only see what we want to see when we're ready to see it.

I've wasted so much time over the years trying to figure out exactly what my life actually meant, it's actually funny. But that's all it was, a waste of time. We will never truly comprehend what it all means. More and more, I'm finding that we can be happy if we just let it go, if we simply don't care enough about things to try to always understand them to death.

These last few months were a good wake-up call for me. Through the years, I've always relied on others to achieve a sense of balance in my life, to try and even everything. Truth be told, I've always looked for someone to help me move forward, be it a lover, be it a friend or a family member. While we'll never be whole living alone, while we'll never be all we can be without friends and family, being reliant on others is not the way forward, it is not how I'll ever be truly happy. People will inevitably disappoint you, that's a fact I've stated over and over again. It's not a character flaw, everyone fails to live up completely to someone's expectations. So, while it saddens me to see less and less people in whom I really trust as the years go by, it served its purpose.

The first step towards being in a good place in our lives is to be okay with ourselves. More than that, we can only truly love someone and find happiness if we are perfectly confortable with who we are. I've always tried to be perfect. Mind you, I was always very far from it, but I've always tried to be the most polite, honorable and principled person I could be. I've always tried to live up to the most ideal values in a society which honestly doesn't value them as much as it should. With that said, it is quite obvious that I've failed tremendously in what I was trying to achieve, in two different points of view: on the one hand, as much as I tried to be *perfect*, there is no such thing. It's pretty much a doomed quest, and while I always enjoyed an impossible challenge, I should've seen the obvious and spare me the trouble. On the other hand, while I tried to be the nicest person I could be, not feeling perfect often resulted in frustration and disappointment. That, in turn, made my life miserable. While it's true that I probably was a very decent person over the years, I was never ok with myself. I was never good enough, I could never feel I was going anywhere in my quest to be better.

Basically, I took a wrong turn somewhere. Happiness and peace of mind aren't the sole possessions of those that are perfect (if there is such a thing). Those two things are achievable once we start living our lives to their fullest, knowing full well that every day is a struggle, that nobody's perfect and that mistakes and disappointments are all part of the game. There's so much to be happy for, seriously.

My biggest realization is that it's okay to be an ordinary person. You can push yourself to the limit trying to be perfect for everyone you know, but in the end, not everyone is looking for perfection, not everyone finds perfection so alluring. Paradoxally, by not caring obsessively about being more than you are, you end up being better, by simply being yourself. And that's all I've been lately. Myself. My virtues and my flaws. My problems and my good moments.

I'll always try to be as decent a person as I can be. I'm not one to live my life as a lie, I'm not one to be disrespectful with anyone. However, I can't be everything for everyone. I will let people down. I will fail miserably at times. But I'm more than enough of a decent human being to be able to pick myself up and be proud and take confort in who I am.

I've started to live a simpler life. Unburdened by the weight of everyone's expectations, by my very own desire to be unreasonably more than what I am. I'm living my life, taking chances, not thinking twice about everything. Above all else, I'm perfectly okay with myself, more than anytime in my life, I dare say.

And the best of all? I'm reaping the rewards already! :)