Careful, your happiness is showing...

This weekend, I met some friends up at Gordon Biersch and I ran into an old friend who I hadn't seen in ages.

It was a sad lesson in the inevitabilities of life, but a reaffirmation for me about how powerful controlling your own life and making your own decisions can be.

When I knew this girl she was outgoing, smart (she finished college in 3 years with a communications degree from a pretty large, somewhat prestigious university), overflowing with self-confidence and refused to let anyone or anything define her. A pretty rare thing and something you don't run into every day. I guess you'd call her an "alpha female". Now, I'm not saying that in any derogatory way. In fact, just the opposite. I was always convinced that she'd be way bigger than any of us in our little "group".

My, how the years change people.

Now she's overweight, sad, and worse of all, she saddled with some horrible douchebag of a guy who's emotionally abusive, kind of an asshole, not very nice, and generally "a dick" to everyone who knows him ("Have you met the guy? He's a total asshole" is basically all anyone ever says). She's one of those women who have never really made a connection with someone meaningful, is getting way up there in years and hasn't gotten married, and is all about settling for the best thing that comes along...because, "let's be honest, that's about the best she's gonna do" (my friends are much less forgiving in their opinions than I am, I guess). What started off as a promising career in advertising, somehow turned into a menial job working in perhaps the most mindless government job on earth (now granted, not all government jobs are bad... but trust me on this one... some of them truly are).

The thing that's so sad though is how obviously she hates her life, and how easy it is to see. When she's telling you "all about the great things she's doing and how happy she is", she sounds less like someone who's telling you "all about the great things she's doing and how happy she is" and more like someone who's trying desperately to sell you on the idea that "all the things she's doing are great, and she's happy". You know what I mean? You kinda wanna say at a certain point, "um, next time don't try so hard...mmkay?"

That kinda bums me out.

Then again, it doesn't bum me out at all. I mean, it's one of those things that initially makes you sad, but then you realize, you can't control anyone else. They're gonna do what they're gonna do, and the decisions they make are theirs and theirs alone to live with.

What it does do, however, is actually make me almost hyperaware of the life that I've got and how all decisions I've made leading up to this moment have resulted in that life...and how completely happy that makes me. Not "pretend" happy. Not "happy to all my friends". But a deep, meaningful, "this is exactly how you're supposed to feel when you're happy" happy. At no point in my life will I ever fall into that trap of telling myself ever again that, "this is the best it will ever be" or "Well, this is how my life turned out I guess...". It's just too depressing a scenario to ever consider. It was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn over the last year or so, but ultimately was so rewarding that it stands to rewrite the definition of "rewarding". After all, decisions are opportunities. With every decision you make, you're presented with an opportunity to do great things. Positive things. Life-changing things.... or, well... not.

So as I walked out of Gordon Biersch on Saturday, muttering under my breath, "that is just so sad", I turned right and walked down to Barnes and Noble for a coffee. I called my wife on the way, to tell her I was on the way home (but wanted to grab a cup of coffee first) and make sure I mention that I loved her, which for some reason seemed like a really important thing for me to say at the time. Because by the time I made it to the bookstore, my happiness was showing.