The month I spent in Kuala Lumpur was, for lack of a better description, not my shining moment. The work I had arranged for accommodation wasn’t worth the exchange, the city itself didn’t entertain me, and I was limited in my ability to pursue activities like yoga that kept my anxiety in check. At one point, I called my parents and expressed thoughts – that I would have rather not expressed on my blog or social media – about coming home. I missed the life I had built for myself in Austin, including my friends, potential career, and routine.

My dad’s response put everything in perspective for me. He essentially told me, “This is why you did the trip in the first place. You wanted to see if this was a journey that was right for you. If it’s not, it’s not. So you come home and pursue something that is right for you.”

Oh. Right.

I stuck out the last few weeks in Malaysia and ended up in Australia, building an environment for myself that did suit me. But without the ability to support myself remotely through copywriting or live in a flat in Brisbane, I would have found myself booking a trip back to America.

In my final days in Austin, I looked around my then-boyfriend’s spacious backyard as his neighbors brewed beer and his roommate’s boyfriend set up for a yoga-related project that we worked on. In that moment, I knew that this was a life that I could pursue, forever, starting right here and right now. Cancel Australia. Dramatically run away before the plane takes off. Twirl around as I have the ~epiphany~ that home was here, all along.

The Arlene Plimpton route, if you let me plop a Kill Bill reference in this post.

But was I Arlene, or was I a non-violent, blogging Beatrix?

And because I didn’t know the answer to that question, I silently folded up thoughts of cancelling my journey to settle down in Austin at the young age of 23.

Back in America, I see friends who have held back from traveling, or closed the book on travel, for a stable life, career, and relationship in one place. At least three Facebook friends hit some big milestones of the engagement or home-buying variety in the last week. Also, everyone in the world went to a wedding or a bachelorette party. Facebook’s algorithm decided to stack all of these announcements together at the top of my newsfeed, under memories that reminded me of trips to Dublin, Austin, and Vietnam.

Arlenes, Arlenes, Beatrix. Duck, duck, goose.

The contrast between my journey and the journey of my Facebook friends is something that makes a reoccurring theme in content throughout all of my social media networks. I am a millennial who has have been taught that my 20s is a time for big announcements like house settlements, gender reveals (which I will and do judge, but that is a queer discussion for another post,) and engagements. As the shining stars that media outlets condescendingly tell us we are, we millennial also feel the need to comment on why we may not be fitting the mold of someone hitting x, y, z. (No one asked, by the way.) And for some reason, one of the ways that we do that is downplaying the successes or journeys of everyone else to justify “shortcomings” that no one else is really labeling as a shortcoming. (Or noticing, by the way.)

There are four types of content that I constantly see from people my age:

1. The one that says, “Everyone on my Facebook is having kids, having babies, and I’m eating Doritos in my underwear in my mom’s basement and I also don’t know how to do my taxes.” Cool.
2. That post that young moms always post that goes along the lines of, “All of my friends give me shit for being a young mom, but GUESS WHAT KAREN, you’re going to be FIFTY caring for KIDS and I’M going to be SIPPING A COCKTAIL.” Rad. Also, get new friends.
3. “Motivational” posts from less-motivational people that urge you to “sTahP WaStiNg yOuR LIfE IN AN oFFiCe, GO tRaVeL ThE woRLd FOR ONCE YOU robOT MoNKeYS.” Dope. Because everyone is that privileged, Brad.
4. This is my LEAST favorite. “In a world of ~~, be a ~~.” In a world of Beatrixes, be an Arlene. In a world of Arlenes, be a Beatrix, for example. Who said that there were just two types of people, anyway?

And finally, the posts where real people are actually hitting real milestones in their lives.

Based on the overwhelmingly gross amount of posts 1-4, my gut reaction is to distance myself from these milestones. Establish my Beatrix position with an annoying #3-esque post that shames everyone who 100% has a smarter retirement plan than mine (which consists solely of a shrug emoji) or a stable, loving partner and stable job with a consistent paycheck. As someone who has actually been lucky (I say, knowing full well that I’ve also worked my ass off) to have skills and pursue a career that allows me to work, literally poolside, whenever and wherever I want, I have the extra privilege of being able to poo-poo anyone who is still back in America with a picture of my feet in the Cairns lagoon.

Sure, it would make myself seemingly feel better when I’m sitting alone at a bar thinking about people I could have dated or careers that I could have built up if I stayed in Austin.

Sure, it’s not the first of it’s kind. There is this pretty shallow narrative that establishes “digital nomad” life has luxurious and hip, even though it’s secretly filled with rushed trips to Macca’s for wi-fi and a very unsure future.

But propping myself up to put others down is petty, and not the fun petty.

So I choose to take the perspective of my dad, in that encouraging and grounding chat from Southeast Asia. We’re all just trying to figure out what works best for us.

Life isn’t a competition. Millennials are taught that we’re all special snowflakes, but guess what, if you want to take that perspective, you have to accept the fact that no snowflake is falling at the same rate. We’re all heading toward the same place (death, lol,) but we’re all going to land somewhere different at different times. No one gives a flying fuck about the first snowflake to hit the ground.

If you are unhappy with your current situation, by all means, your feelings are valid. But you have options. You can justify your shitty situation by downplaying everyone else in your life through tired social media content.

Or.

You can be happy for everyone hitting milestones, everyone taking time to go back to school, everyone who gets to travel, people with success and money and love? Like, you love your man, you LOVE him, go get it Nancy. Rally behind the people who have what you don’t. Because most likely, if you choose positive energy over bitter stewing, you can channel that energy into work or appreciation with what you do have, and set yourself on a journey toward the things you want.

This could easily take a turn into a rant fueled by all of the personal development and productivity-related projects that I have been working on lately. So I’ll end here. Just be happy for other people. It will open the doors for being happy for yourself.

And guess what? If you’re eating Doritos in your underwear in your mom’s basement and you don’t know how to do your taxes? Be very happy for yourself, because 1) that sounds amazing and 2) that will be me when I come home in November.

Get happy. Spread the happy.