Finding your bliss. I have been thinking about those three words for a month; weighing them, testing them, worrying at their edges. I have passed them from palm to palm, like pebbles, and like sand, let them fall between my fingers. I’ve mixed up their order, played with verb tense, substituted pronouns. Under my intense scrutiny they’ve started to fray and lose their lustre. They’ve lost all meaning.

I do not know what “finding your bliss” means.

I know what it looks like for other people. The brother of a friend who at 17 was so certain of his calling to be a chef that he quit high school and moved to Japan to apprentice at a world famous restaurant—he knows what his bliss is. An acquaintance who gave up everything she knew about her comfortable North American life to educate girls and young women in Ghana—she knows what her bliss is. My father in law, destined from childhood to be a doctor, and so beloved by his patients that some of them named children after him—he knew what his bliss was, and built a whole life around it.

I admire the people who are able to do that. I am, in fact, in awe of them. I marvel at their passion, their certainty. I studied linguistics, creative writing and literature in university, but I never did pick a major. I have, at various times, considered being an actor, a nutritionist, a songwriter, a lawyer, a journalist and a French teacher. I have, at various times, actually been a bartender, an assistant director in film and television, a project manager in property development and a designer of children’s clothing. The sheer number of things I’ve tried, or thought about trying, tells me I don’t know what my bliss is. If it’s out there, I haven’t found it yet.

And here’s the thing: It may not be out there. I don’t know that I have a bliss, singular. If I have a calling, it’s speaking too softly for me to hear above the noise of my daily imperatives. If I have a grand, life-changing passion, it seems to be in no hurry to make itself known. So what do I do?

Should I be chasing after something I’m not sure exists?

Here’s what I think: No. And here’s why: It doesn’t matter. Maybe not everyone has a bliss, singular. Rather than waste perfectly good hand-wringing and angst on whether I have found myself, or whether my life’s a failure because I don’t know what I want, or whether I’ll ever find my true calling or realize my destiny, I’d rather enjoy life’s endless little minutes of bliss, plural.

If I’ve managed to learn anything in my 41 years of flailing about aimlessly, it is this: There is joy in the smallest of moments. There is awesome hiding around every corner, there is goofy fun to be had on any given day. So I’m not a doctor. We can’t all be doctors. But I spent three minutes and 48 seconds yesterday dancing to the Beastie Boys with my three-year-old, and no one can take that away from me. I played guitar and sang badly for my grandmother in her nursing home and she clapped and clapped and thought it was the best thing ever, and the smile on her face is one of my favourite memories of her. A tourist mistook me for a local when I was in Paris and asked me for directions. I’ve dressed up in an evening gown to watch the Oscars at home alone, I’ve wept at weddings, I’ve hugged loved ones and never let go first. I have been sober for 18 years. I have found the perfect boots. I have grown a human being with my body. I have looked stupid, been brilliant and married my best friend. I have learned the hard way, but I know who I am.

So I don’t care about finding my bliss, singular. I’m more interested in bliss, plural.

What’s your bliss?

Alexis Hinde is a mom and owner/designer of Chill Monkeys, a clothing line for boys. She writes about life as a mom at wavethestick.com.

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