There Is No Right Way to Live, Only Your Way

 

Everyone Is Happy Somewhere, and That’s Enough

Everyone Is Winning a Different Race, and None of Us Know the Finish Line

I once believed there was a correct way to live life, like a secret formula hidden somewhere between a motivational quote and a financial planning spreadsheet. 

You know the kind. Graduate on time, find a stable job, build a respectable career, buy a house, and somehow look calm while doing all of it. It sounded reasonable when I was younger, which only proves that I had not yet met enough people to ruin that illusion.

One of those people is Hendra.

Hendra and I grew up together in rural West Kalimantan, a place where ambition often travels no further than the nearest rice field. 

His parents were landowners, and their land was tended by tenant farmers who worked under the quiet agreement that Hendra’s future would never involve financial anxiety. 

At seventeen, while I was still negotiating with my parents about pocket money, Hendra was driving his first car with the confidence of someone who had never needed to check his bank balance before ordering fried rice.

By his early twenties, he already owned multiple houses under his name. Actual houses, the kind people usually acquire after decades of stress and regret. 

Now, in his late thirties, Hendra still lives in our hometown. He has never once left it, not even for a short experiment with big-city life. He wakes up each day surrounded by familiarity, comfort, and a quiet sense of certainty. His world has boundaries, but those boundaries have always been enough for him.

Whenever I visit home, I see him sitting at the same coffee shop, greeting people who have known him since childhood. There is no restlessness in his eyes, no sign of regret. He looks at peace in a way that makes me question my own passport.

Then there is Ayla.

I met Ayla in Jakarta, a city where ambition moves faster than traffic and people measure success in square meters and coffee receipts. 

Ayla was known at work for her extreme frugality. She never took taxis, even when it rained. She drank mineral water while everyone else held cups of expensive coffee like trophies. She brought her own lunch every day, packed neatly in reusable containers that suggested both discipline and quiet defiance.

To most people, Ayla appeared miserly. Some whispered about it with polite concern, as if she were depriving herself of life’s pleasures. 

Yet few of them knew that Ayla had visited over seventy countries. 

Seventy. 

While others spent their salaries on lifestyle upgrades, she spent hers on flight tickets and hostel reservations. Her dream was simple and ambitious at the same time. She wanted to visit every country in the world before she grew too old to appreciate airport food.

Listening to her stories felt like opening windows in a room I did not know was suffocating me. She spoke about crossing deserts, navigating foreign train stations, and watching sunsets in cities I had only seen on screens. 

Each story carried the quiet satisfaction of someone who had chosen her life deliberately. Her frugality was not a limitation. It was her ticket to freedom, carefully calculated and unapologetically lived.

Then there is Arif.

Arif is in his fifties and still lives in his parents’ house. In Indonesia, this is not unusual, yet society has a way of turning normality into judgment. 

Some people look at him with pity, assuming his life must be defined by stagnation or failure. They imagine loneliness, unfulfilled ambitions, and a quiet sense of defeat. Arif, however, seems perfectly content with his circumstances.

His days are simple. He wakes up early, helps his parents with small tasks, and spends his afternoons reading newspapers or chatting with neighbors. There is no visible urgency in his routine, no desire to escape or reinvent himself. He laughs easily, eats well, and sleeps peacefully. Whenever I see him, I am struck by how calm he appears, as though he has quietly discovered something the rest of us are still searching for.

And then there is my ex-girlfriend.

I will not mention her name, partly out of respect and partly out of self-preservation. She had a habit of moving to a new city every few years, chasing the elusive promise of self-discovery. 

Each relocation was a fresh beginning, a new chapter in her ongoing attempt to understand herself. She believed that freedom existed in motion, in the act of leaving behind what was familiar and stepping into uncertainty.

Our relationship ended because of this restlessness. I wanted stability. She wanted possibility. To her, staying in one place felt like surrender, while leaving felt like breathing. It was not an act of rejection. It was simply the direction her life needed to take. She moved forward with determination, and I remained behind, quietly admiring her courage while nursing my own confusion.

For a long time, I found myself comparing these lives, searching for answers in their choices.

Hendra, surrounded by comfort and continuity. Ayla, navigating the world with a backpack and relentless discipline. Arif, rooted in familiarity and contentment. My ex-girlfriend, constantly reinventing herself in distant cities. 

Each of them appeared to embody a different philosophy, a different definition of happiness. I wondered which path represented success, which one reflected wisdom, and which one I should have followed.

The question lingered quietly in my mind, especially during those late nights when the city fell silent and my thoughts grew louder.

Who is living life the right way?

At first, I tried to evaluate them using conventional standards. Financial stability, personal freedom, social expectations, emotional fulfillment. Each criterion produced a different answer, and none of them felt entirely convincing. Hendra possessed wealth and certainty. Ayla possessed experience and adventure. Arif possessed peace. My ex-girlfriend possessed courage. None of them seemed incomplete. Each life made sense from within its own narrative.

It was then that I realized something unsettling and strangely comforting.

The problem was not their choices. The problem was my comparison.

I had been searching for a universal blueprint in a world that did not operate on universal principles. Each of them had chosen a life aligned with their own values, desires, and limitations. Hendra found meaning in stability. Ayla found meaning in exploration. Arif found meaning in simplicity. My ex-girlfriend found meaning in transformation. Their lives were not competing with one another. They were simply unfolding in different directions.

And there I was, standing in the middle of these narratives, wondering which one I should emulate, as if happiness were a competition rather than a personal experience.

The realization arrived quietly, without drama or revelation. It felt less like an answer and more like a gentle understanding that settled into my thoughts. Perhaps there is no correct way to live, only the way that feels true to the person living it. The moment we begin measuring our lives against others, we lose sight of the only perspective that truly matters: our own.

Now, whenever I think of Hendra, Ayla, Arif, and my ex-girlfriend, I no longer see contradictions. I see variations of contentment, each shaped by individual priorities and personal definitions of fulfillment. Their lives do not need to align with mine, just as mine does not need to mirror theirs. The beauty of existence lies not in uniformity, but in diversity, in the quiet understanding that happiness wears many faces.

I am still figuring out my own version of it, slowly and imperfectly, often overthinking things that probably do not require this much analysis. Yet there is comfort in knowing that there is no single path to follow, no universal standard to meet. Each of us is navigating life with our own compass, guided by instincts we are still learning to trust.

And perhaps the only way to live life correctly is to stop asking whether we are doing it right.