I recently had a conversation with my husband where I started off logically discussing that writing wasn’t making me as happy as it used to, and I ended up in tears because I revealed that I have never felt like I have a calling, or “passion.”

(I also talked about this in a Facebook live vid I did recently.)

The worst is that the calling and passion I thought I had forever – writing – has suddenly taken a dramatic decline on the list of “Things That Make Me Happy” or “Things That Are Important To Me” (more on that, maybe, in another blog post). The thing I thought would make me happy forever suddenly…doesn’t. And other options on how to spend my time (learning a new music production software, starting a new clothing company) are taking precedence.

So what does it all mean? Do I have no passion? Do I have no calling? Am I meant to not do anything…or conversely, try everything once and then abandon it?

(I request here that you turn down your arrogance switch a little now because this is going to sound hugely douchey but I don’t mean it to.) The problem wasn’t that I wasn’t good at anything. The problem was that I could be good at anything. The potential bugs me. Most things I get really into for a little bit, get really good at…and then promptly abandon.

Nothing has held my attention long enough for me to consider it a passion. Except, maybe, working out or being vegan, but I consider those partial passions and partial necessities. And they aren’t things I can talk to people about forever because people are terrible and judgy. So maybe they are my passions, but they also aren’t things I can turn into a path, forever, which is really what I was looking for.

Then a thought struck me: I actually do have one very big, very glaring passion. The thing that I am always chasing, the thing I am always grateful for, and the thing I can’t get enough of: freedom. And going along with that, I realized that my other big passion is making the world a better place. The two sort of go hand-in-hand but it all starts with my need for freedom.

I know it sounds like a cop-out: freedom can’t be a passion or a calling because those are more vocationally-oriented. Well, says who? Freedom happens to actually be my passion – it is THE thing most important to me in life.

Now, figuring out what to do with that information is a whole other story. And truth be told, I haven’t, yet, figured out what to do with it. I have loads of business ideas swimming in my head, loads of paths I could follow, and loads of things I want to do before I kick the bucket.

But so what? For now, just knowing I’ve found it is enough. So back to why I’m writing this – finding out that my passion was freedom was a bitch. It sucked. It took a lot of tears. And I felt like a total failure most of the time.

Here are a few things I learned about how to find your passion along the way.

1. Stop listening to what other people are prescribing for your life.

Really, this is the best thing to do no matter what – not just to find your passion. Stop listening to other people. Just…stop. No stroke of genius, no flash of inspiration, no good, really, ever came from listening to what other people have prescribed for you life. So quit worrying about it.

As soon as you do, you’ll realize you’ve opened yourself up to figure out what YOU truly want.

2. Stop worrying about what other people actually think of you.

A close second to ignoring people’s thoughts for you should do with your life is ignoring people’s thoughts about you, in general.

The only way to find true happiness and to truly discover your passion – the thing that will drive you every day – is to no longer worry about what other people think of you.

I’ll admit, I can be pretty sensitive sometimes. But I also quickly snap myself out of it and remind myself that it honestly doesn’t. fucking.  matter. what other people think of me.

3. Write down 5-10 words that reflect your personality, according to you.

This was a fun little project for me because I had never done anything even remotely like this before. I decided to journal about a few different words that (I think) reflect my personality. The “I think” is critical here because it is my own view of myself. As it will be for you. Doing a short little project like this will let you see how you truly view yourself and will get you that much closer to finding your passion.

A few of my words were: adventurous, empathetic, impatient, organized, outgoing, lazy (yes, I really am soooo much of the time), and loud.

4. Write down 5-10 skills you have that you value.

This is similar to the prior exercise but with just a slight tweak: instead of writing down character traits, you’ll be writing down skills about yourself that you value.

Read carefully: NOT just skills you have. Skills you have that you VALUE.

To give you an example, I am really good at research. But IDGAF about that. It’s not something that’s going to make me happy and it’s not something that gives me life in any way.

But conversely, I think I am also really good at connecting with people. And that IS something I really value. So by writing that down I got a bit closer to figuring out my passion.

If you are interested, my skills list was as follows: connecting to people, speaking in public, being open (yes, I consider this a skill), time management, writing, and thinking outside the box.

5. Say yes, as much as possible.

You know that thing you’re really scared to do? Go do it, right now.

That social invitation you got from a friend that freaks you out? Take them up on it.

In other words, say YES.

I think many of us have this idea that we’ll find out passions by just sitting around and dreaming about them. Or by researching them. That’s not how it works, though. We only actually discover our passion and our happiness, and what we WANT from life, by getting out and DOING life.

You’ll hate some things, you’ll be indifferent about some things. But you’ll also LOVE some things that you never thought you would and it’s those things that will lead you in the right direction.

6. Let yourself be capricious.

My husband will arrive home from work on a Monday afternoon to hear me saying I want to go to med school.

By Monday evening, I’ll be sure I want to open a food truck and drive to music festivals the rest of my life.

Tuesday afternoon rolls in and now I want to move to Costa Rica and write books from my house.

In other words, I’m really fucking capricious. When I was young, I hated this about myself. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized it’s a necessity for figuring out what’s going to work. It’s only by changing my mind a bunch of times that I’ll figure out what feels right.

If you’re like me, fear not. It really IS part of the process. Mindchangers Unite!

7. Realize that your passion may not be a traditional passion.

I’m pretty sure you can’t major in “freedom.” (Although believe you me if I were president, I’d make it happen.)

You can study things like music or art, or train in medicine or just generally have established paths for pursuing other passions.

This disheartened me for a long time because I didn’t think there was any way freedom could be a passion.

Well, it turns out that just because NYU doesn’t teach “how to chase freedom” doesn’t mean that freedom isn’t actually a passion.

So if you don’t feel like you have a “traditional” path, so be it. Let yourself be open to the possibility that you are entirely unique and that so will your passion be.

8. Accept that the answer will come when you least expect it – and enjoy the ride.

Honestly, this point might be an “ignore this fucking list and carve your own path.” Or a “this list means nothing because life is weird.” And if it is, I’m good with that.

The thing is, even after doing all the things I suggest, you might not find your passion. You might still feel like you’re floundering. And you know what? That is perfectly okay, because as cliche as it is, things happen when you’re ready.

Instead of stressing over not having found your passion, enjoy the ride. Enjoy every moment, from the ups to the downs to the new friends to the new hobbies.

Because that’s life. And no one gets out alive, right, so we may as well have a party while we’re here.

It’s a Wednesday evening.

You have two screens going as usual. On one, you’re binge-watching your latest favorite show on Netflix. On another, you have Facebook popped open and you’re mindlessly scrolling along, checking out news and friends’ status updates.

Suddenly, your temporarily blank mind realizes you’re looking at an advertisement. It’s for a new work recruitment/travel company convinced that breaking out of the 9 to 5 is the way of the future. They’re looking for people ages 25-35 who are interested in switching careers, joining them, and starting to live the dream.

“Interesting,” you think.

You mentally log that you might want to check it out later and scroll down a bit further.

You see an image of one of your best friends from high school, long since a stranger to you, posed with his new baby (his second) and his wife and eldest child. The post caption is something meant-to-be-funny about new baby spit-up and parental exhaustion, but it’s really just sort of sad.

“Why do people want to have kids,” you think. “It’s just such a nightmare.”

So you keep scrolling.

Then, your attention gets momentarily pulled from Facebook to your Netflix show. This one (the most recent worthy of your binge-time) is about a kid in high school who finds out he’s actually a superhero from birth. The show is about him finding his way, learning the ropes, while, of course, also learning to appreciate his new gifts. The plot twist though is that his only power is his superhuman intellect. He can’t fly or move mountains with his super strength. He can speak faster, think faster, process information faster than any other human on earth. And he voraciously consumes information. And because of that, he obtains everything we all want: money, freedom, power.

In this scene, the kid has just closed the deal on buying an evil, soul-sucking corporation and he plans to dismantle it for the betterment of humanity.

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” you think, “to have all that money and power and be able to really make a difference?”

You start to let your eyes wander back to Facebook but then you pause.

“Maybe it’s possible.”

Hmm.

“But eh, where to start.”

Your phone briefly flashes with a news update from CNN. You’re not even sure you want to check it out because it’s probably a new ridiculous thing your president has said or done.

“Man, how did he even get elected,” you think.

But you, of course, can’t be bothered to do anything to help change things.

By the time you switch back to Facebook, you’re scrolling past an advertisement about student loan repayment.

“WE CAN HELP YOU FINANCE!” The ad screams at you.

“Fuck,” you think, “I could have done without thinking about my student loans for a minute.”

You went to undergrad and grad school at a private university. So you’re in the neighborhood of $150,000 in debt with no foreseeable way out at the moment.

It’s why you work in the soul-sucking corporate job that you do. It was the best-paying option.

Sure, you hate your life every day that you wake up, but you had to go to college, because that’s what people say you’re supposed to do, then you had to go to grad school, and you had to finance it, so now you can’t really do anything you “love” because you need the money.

Your eyes wander over to your guitar sitting in the corner of the room. If things had been different….

But whatever, no time for that now.

You glance back to Facebook, where you’re looking at an advertisement for an expensive watch, by the tech company, Pear. Everyone is into it – it’s the absolute latest on the market.

It’s not really in your budget, but so what? Everyone loves it for a reason. You’ll just put it on credit. No big deal.

You mentally log to head to the store later to get it.

Facebook has decided you didn’t pay enough attention to the travel company ad so it’s flashing across your screen again, but this time, you scroll past with no interest.

It’s a pipe dream to think you’ll ever be able to do anything except your current, terrible job, so what’s the point in even thinking about it. You have to pay back your loans. So you’re stuck.

Your legs are starting to feel numb so you get up and wander to your kitchen, where you pull open the fridge and start to reach for a beer. Nah, you decide you want something stronger, so you pop up to the freezer and pull out the vodka and dump it in a glass.

You’re sipping on it as you decide to walk out on your small little balcony, where you hear the neighbor’s radio on. It’s the game. How could you have forgotten? You can watch Netflix anytime but sports are your life. You played a bit of football in undergrad before real life took over (you could have had a pretty promising career) and now you follow your team, The Blue Jackets, like it’s your life. When they win, you feel like you’ve won. When they lose, it hurts you.

I mean, let’s be real, you have nothing to do with their wins and losses save maybe padding the licensor’s pockets by buying some commercial team gear, but hey, it makes you feel a little less numb about your life to look forward to sporting events like they are your air.

The game pauses and you hear a commercial for this new thing called “A2 Milk.” Apparently, it’s “natural” milk that’s easier to digest.

“Oh, interesting,” you think. “I should try that.”

Dairy milk has never been great for your stomach, but if there’s a way to make it easier to drink, why not?

The thought that you shouldn’t be drinking another animal’s milk – that, perhaps, that, in and of itself, is unnatural – doesn’t strike you.

You wander back over to your computer to see if you can find a place to stream your game. Your phone, sitting next to you, lights up again.

It’s a notification from Instagram, someone liked your photo. You don’t have a ton of human connection these days besides work, so you eagerly open the app.

When you get Insta running, the first thing you see is a recent post about someone you know getting really fit by trying one of those new video fitness programs. They look great.

“That’s cool,” you think. “I’d like to try that….but I’m also so tired all the time. Meh, whatever.”

You scroll up a bit on Insta and see that your favorite fast food restaurant is advertising a new $1 menu of all of the cheesiest, meatiest stuff.

So, of course, you resolve to try it the next day.

Your head starts to hurt so you get up and wander over to your bathroom medicine cabinet. You pull it open and remember, with a laugh, that because of all of your ailments you own a virtual pharmacy right inside your apartment.

You don’t know why you feel so bad all the time, but you do. Your doctor hasn’t been able to figure it out, but truthfully, he doesn’t seem really interested most of the time.

You find the headache med you are looking for and reach for it. You pause for a second, remembering this medicine has side effects including extreme drowsiness, fatigue, blood clots, heart attack, and even, laughably, headaches.

“It’s the best bet,” you think and take it anyway.

It’d be nice if there were something more natural, like from a plant, with fewer side effects, but the truth is, you don’t know why you’re so sick and you trust the pharmaceutical industry and the government about why certain things are legal and certain things aren’t.

You pop back over to your computer, frustrated your game stream isn’t loading, and decide to open Tinder while you wait.

It’s really a waste of time, but you are a romantic at heart and really wishing you could find someone to save you, to take you away from the dreariness of life.

Marriage, though, hasn’t even really been on your radar. Neither have kids. But the thing is, that’s what you do, right? You fall in love, you get married, and you start pumping out babies.

Then you just work so your kids can have a theoretically better life than you.

You’ll never be able to afford college for them, though, since you’ll still be paying off your own loans well into their childhood.

I mean, it seems really stressful, but if everyone does it, there’s probably something to it right?

And you suppose you’ll buy a house at some point. That seems really expensive, but hey, people do it. Then they just work to pay off their mortgage.

And so will you.

Sure, you are sick and bored and numb yourself with mindless television and alcohol. Fitness isn’t accessible to you and you pump yourself full of pharmaceuticals just to get through the day. You’re looking at a life full of work, indebtedness to other people, and wondering why you’re even doing the things you’re doing.

But why question things? People have been living this way for years.

It’s a good life.

Isn’t it?

I haven’t written in a long, long time.

And I suppose, that got to me a bit (well, not NOT writing, just the idea of having a weirdly unfinished blog on the internets). So I wanted to take some time to gather my thoughts and talk for a second about why I stopped writing.

It can be summed up in the title of this post: the internet is a bullshit cesspool of competitive mediocrity. And of come to loathe it. Not just mildly dislike it: actually truly detest and abhor it. As well as most of the people on it.

Now, it’s no secret that I haven’t been a fan of people for a really long time. Since I got married and began hearing about all of people’s bullshit opinions without being asked, I’ve slowly delved deeper and deeper into a happy hole of anthropophobia. I’ve been spending the past several months with my husband, my animals, my family, and that’s it.

I honestly can’t even be bothered lately, to answer phone calls or texts. I’ve become the person I hate – the one that doesn’t understand human connection is all we have.

I haven’t always been like this. In fact, I’ve written extensively about the importance of connection and the fact that I liked Facebook and Instagram for the connection they gave us with other humans, despite their many flaws. I was a people person. And I was happy with that.

But what can I say? A couple of years more of life experience and I couldn’t hold on to my love of people anymore. Maybe a better woman would have been able to, but not me. I’ll be the first to admit that the shitty people in the world got to me and changed me. I don’t know how I could possibly stay who I was in the face of the garbage in the world.

And this isn’t a “woe is me” post. I’m not saying or implying (nor do I believe) that I’m special and people were uniquely shitty to me. People are shitty. The world we live in is a shitty place. The election, the aftermath, what’s still going on in the United States today: I don’t believe in the good in people anymore because I don’t believe there is any.

And I’m not talking about ordinary, garden-variety shitty or large-scale, power-hungry shitty. I’m talking about both. I’m talking about people who:

• Are racists and treat minorities like dirt just because they can
• Are narcissistic assholes
• Believe they are better than everyone
• Spend hours typing trollish comments on the internet because their life is meaningless
• Mistreat animals
• Mistreat humans

And on and on. You get the point.

The LITMO Life started because I was going on an adventure and wanted to share it with people I really loved. The LITMO Life grew because it started to draw strangers interested in my story. The LITMO Life stalled because I couldn’t handle the armchair assholes.

I left social media and it made me super happy. I left The LITMO Life and it didn’t make me happy at all. When I came back to social media exclusively for yoga (one of the unfortunate facts is that to build even a brick-and-mortar business, you need SOME kind of social media presence, I’m currently working on how to get around this one but until then I’ve figured, if you can’t beat them, temporarily join them – and hey no shame in admitting I really want to own my own yoga studio in about six months, following it up soon after with a vegan restaurant lolol), I realized that to some extent, I could make it work for me, but I had to have the guts. For a while, I really don’t. Maybe, still don’t.

Again, I’ll be the first to admit it. In the face of terrible humans, I’m not one to grin and bear it. I’m one to feel stunned, run home, and lock myself in a room in tears, wishing there weren’t so many awful people in the world.

The LITMO Life could exist and flourish because of this thing we call the internet. This endless space of connection and criticism and love and hate and knowledge and ignorance and music and silence and movement and stillness. The internet that allows us to get all the information we could ever need – and all the information we will NEVER need – at the simple click of a button.

The internet that I, now, truly despise.

The fact that I’m typing this on the internet on a still-live website isn’t beyond me. I haven’t been able to fully let go of The LITMO Life because, well, I love it. And I’ve loved it for a long time.

The LITMO Life, unlike many other parts of the internet, is entirely ME. It has no editor, I can shut off the comments if I want, and I’m not bound to write what I think will get the most page views. I’m bound to write what makes me happy.

Still, I can’t get beyond the internet as a place that exists for people to amplify themselves in every way. I stopped writing not because I felt like I didn’t have anything to say, but because I felt like there was no point. There are a lot of vegans, a lot of people that don’t believe in having kids or monogamy, a lot of people who want to make the world a better place. I didn’t feel like I was adding anything to any discourse by shouting into the void – and I still don’t. For better or worse, I feel that most things written on the internet are just that – shouting into a huge void. That’s why I stopped writing for other outlets. The race to the bottom of “what story can draw the most sick, sad, pathetic people in” was a race I didn’t want a place in. I didn’t want to share my stories just for people to marvel at, like a zoo animal. I started writing to SHARE and make real connections. I stopped writing because I realized most people don’t want real connections, they want to gawk and stare and point and whisper.

And I feel like the internet is dying – that while, for a time, it was the way to get things accomplished and build the life you want, I just don’t see how that’s still possible in 2018 and beyond.

There’s just too much bullshit on the internet. There’s too much of everything. How are you supposed to feel even remotely unique when there are about a million other people feeling exactly what you do and about 500,000 of those people have the time, the skill, the fucking PATIENCE to curate their social media, their websites, do it all “right”? I don’t have the time or skill or patience. And I don’t honestly care if I actually am unique – all I cared about, for a time, was meeting those other people that were like me. But the internet didn’t let me do that, because, well, the BULLSHIT.

Even worse, the internet doesn’t allow you to change your mind. Build your career on pieces about the single life? Fuck you for getting married. Build your career on pieces about travel? Fuck you for staying home for a few months. Build your career on anything else – a particular videogame, a style of writing, restaurant critiques, etc., and want to change your mind, your direction, your life? Well, a big FUCK YOU because the people of the internet only value one thing: stagnancy.

So, people of the internet, fuck you.

I’ve missed The LITMO Life because it’s ME. And I’m ashamed that I let all the stupid bullshit get to me, but not entirely because that’s who I am. I’m sensitive as fuck and people being mean to other people really bothers me.

If nothing else, I’ve realized I want to keep The LITMO Life because it’s my dad’s legacy, because I wrote about so much of my life on here and will want to read all of that in here’s to come. Because I want to build something for MYSELF, where I talk about the things I love and ignore the things I don’t. I want to blabber on about how much I love my husband and my puppy and kitty and chatter about my new love of new things and my old love of forgotten things.

So, this time, I say to just MYSELF: Welcome to The LITMO Life, Anjali. It’s fucking missed you.

Please consider this list a “living” document and feel free to add to it in the comments!

1. Dairy
2. Racism
3. Sexism
4. Purses (Because why? If men can just have wallets and phones and keys why TF can’t we?)
5. Mortgages
6. The system in general
7. Old white men running our nation
8. Old white men running the financial sector
9. Old white men running most Bar associations
10. Really, old white men running anything at this point (they’ve proven they can’t be trusted)
11. Expensive material possessions
12. Adulting
13. People that bump into other people and don’t say sorry
14. People who act like they want to be friends but then are all “Ok great I’ll text you soon…..”
15. Being unhealthy
16. Being unfit
17. Cheating on your significant other (honestly this is just so fucking cowardly)
18. Music festival port-o-potties
19. People who don’t pick up their dog’s poop
20. People who hit people
21. Bacon (honestly what the fuck is wrong with you America)
22. People who voted for Trump
23. Politicians who think money in their pocket is more important than literal human lives