Hi, nice to see you! Yeah, I don’t do that anymore.

If everyone else can get over it, you can too.

It’s (not) amazing that people can get over huge life changes … when they’re not happening to them.

Depending, of course, on who they are, usually when someone meets someone else who has gone through some big changes, they just take it in stride. “Oh, that’s great!” Which is recognition of your mind-blowing transformation. But it’s short lived because the next thing out of their mouth is, “Hey, could you pass those buttered rolls?”

For sake of simplicity and example, let’s say you’re a dentist.

(I also like the dentist example because when I was really busy with my marketing agency and didn’t want new clients (which was most of the time), I’d tell strangers I was a dentist.)

So, you’re a dentist. But then you decide to become an opera singer. Maybe it’s that mouth wide open thing. Or knowledge of tonsils? Anyway.

You’re at a party and you run into someone you know and that person is even a patient of yours. You have personally gone through months of agony, sleepless nights, dreadful bouts of doubt and questions of self worth that shook you to your core. It’s an earth-shattering decision of yours to throw away your illustrious and prestigious career as a dentist and become an opera singer. You tell your friend at at the party, “Hi, nice to see you! Yeah, I don’t do that anymore.”

“Oh, wow, that’s great. I mean, is that great? Yeah, of course. That’s great.”

But then they think of themselves. It’s human nature. I’m not blaming them, it’s just what we do. Because then they think of that back left molar that was giving them trouble and the future is now unclear. You are standing there envisioning singing with the London Philharmonic but your friend asks, “So, will you still be able to look at my molar?”

I’m not saying this did happen. I’m not saying this did happen (although it might have). I’m saying this could happen.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Well, nothing is “wrong” with it, it’s just the way it is. Remember, No one cares but you. But that’s OK, because you do care. You’re going to go on and be a rockstar of opera. Well, that is, if being a rockstar of opera is a good thing, I don’t know enough about opera.

What’s “right” about this picture? No one cares but you. What does that mean? It means you should do what makes you happy. You should do what brings a glimmer to your eye and a skip to your step. Do what makes your heart flutter and birds talk to you. Do what brings you new friends you never knew you had, but who you could no longer live without. Do what you know you need to do, what you want to do. Do who you are.

No one else is going to care. But you will.