Are you good at life?

I used to have a friend in college who, when she was drunk, instead of the cliche “I love you, man!” would go around parties telling people that they were good at life.

I have always really liked that phrase. In fact, my Facebook About Me right now reads simply, “I am good at life.” I mean it as a joke mostly just because I like that line but, in all seriousness, that is how I feel. I feel like I am pretty darn good at life so far.

I think we can all think of someone off the top of our head who is “bad at life.” They don’t remember to pay bills on time, they can never keep a job, they waste all their money on things they don’t need and don’t save for the things they do need. Somehow, these people didn’t catch on to the rules and never got the hang of it enough so they just aren’t very good at this crazy game of life. I sadly know quite a few people that fit this description. They can be perfectly nice people but they are totally helpless at managing their own life. I find myself saying, how hard is it to just pay your bills when they come in instead of leaving them on the floor and losing them? But that is how they play the game of life and, while I may not be able to wrap my mind around it, it is how they play. It’s like the person who cannot dribble a basketball isn’t good at basketball.

Some people are good at life. If you think of life as a game or a sport, some people react better to each challenge thrown at them than others. There are a few basic things you need to be able to do to get through life: a place to live, food to eat, enough money to have food and a place to live, a way to get that money, some people to socialize with, etc. Some people do the bare minimum to get by, some go totally overboard, and some can’t seem to do anything right. But if you taking most of what life throws you in stride, handling it well, and have what you need to be happy the majority of the time, you are pretty good at life.

This isn’t to say that life is a competition. It isn’t. Your neighbor with the big car and the fancy stone driveway isn’t better at life than you are. In fact, if he got into debt buying that stone driveway or drinks and drives in his big car, he’s actually pretty bad at life. To me, it’s not something you can compare to anyone else, it is simply you, dealing with what life has thrown at you.

Talking about myself in the specific, this isn’t to say that my life or myself are in any way perfect. I’m not going all “I’m awesome” on you, don’t worry. Far from it. I botch stuff up all the time, I totally freak out for no reason, I can be a real loony, and that is just the start of it. I am a spaz, trust me. I don’t claim to be perfect at life or even excellent at it, just good at it. I have managed to keep a job, a roof over my head, food on my place and, best of all, I have managed to do all of that in a way that makes and keep me happy. As far as I am concerned, happiness is the only measure of success worth taking. If I am keeping myself happy then I call that being good at life.

Where am I going with this? Well I think that, when it all comes down to it, being good at life is something worth striving for. If you just take each moment, decision, trial, etc and try to do the best you can with it, as long as you always make that effort, strive towards being good at life, you will be.

I also think it is an attitude thing. I may not really be good at life but I feel like I am and thinking that makes a big difference in my general outlook and how I view anything that comes my way.

So, do you feel like you are good at life?