When you are little, you’re told to go after the one thing in life that will bring you success. You’re encouraged to decide what it is that you want to be when you grow up. As you get older, you have the option to go to college where you have to decide what it is you want to study. You choose to study that “one thing” and then you move into a career where you get to do that “one thing” forever and ever.But what if you want more? Or you want something else? What if you want to switch gears in the middle of your life and do something different? Is that wrong?

Many in our culture would say yes, it is wrong. They would tell us it’s not healthy to bounce around ideas or not have “focus.” They would tell us to take workshops or go talk to someone that can help us find our purpose so we could find that “one thing.”

But what if that’s not what life is really about?

What if life isn’t about finding purpose, but finding happiness?

If you feel like you’re missing out on something because you haven’t found your purpose (or that “one thing”), this post is your permission slip to stop looking. This post is your permission slip to do the things that make you happy, no matter what they are, and whether or not you get paid for them.

Why am I giving you this permission slip?

Because you need it. You deserve it. No longer do you have to put yourself through the agony of fitting in to the expected box of purpose. No longer do you have to feel pain because “she knows what she wants to do with her life but I don’t.”

• Yes you do. You want to be happy.
• If that looks like long walks in the woods, go.
• And, if that looks like spending time with friends or family, go.
• Yes, If that looks like riding horses or painting on canvas or writing short stories at 2 o’clock in the morning, go.

Somebody, somewhere, decided that the meaning of life was to find purpose, and to find a way to make a living with that purpose. And while this isn’t a bad idea, it’s just not something that’s going to work for everybody.

Life is not just about finding that “one thing.”

It’s not about walking the earth feeling lost because you don’t fit in to the expected box of purpose.

That’s it. If you just so happen to be someone that has always known they’ve wanted to be a doctor or a painter, great. But if you’re someone that has never known what you’ve wanted to be, that’s still great. Because you already are something. You are love.

Life isn’t about purpose. It’s about doing what makes us happy in the moment we’re in right now. What would make you happy right this very second? Go do it. You’re allowed. You officially have the Universe’s permission.

Joleene Moody is a PositivityGuides writer and Robbins-Madanes interventionist, specializing in offering information that helps readers shift their mindset quickly in order to improve their lives.

See also:

Positive writing: your first book
100 ways to promote mental wellness
Is a good diet the path to happiness