“I think you would like his job actually—you’d find it really interesting.”

I turned my head to the side. “You think I would be happy working for Deloitte?”

“No, you’d be miserable. But his job is interesting—he gets to Google the shit out of people and do extensive background checks. It’s like finding out if someone is a sociopath. You LOVE sociopaths!”

**Let the record show, I do not love sociopaths. I am FASCINATED by them. I dated one in college. I learned my lesson, too. Ever since, I am queen of scoping them out. If you ever told me something quasi-unbelievable, chances are, I Googled it. I avoid watching the news since Trump got elected, but man can I online stalk the shit out of someone.

Tangent. This post is not about my stalking skills.

This post is about knowing what you want, and not getting distracted by the things you don’t.

I am one hundred percent aware of the benefits of working for one of the Big Four (or equally prestigious international firm). An employee’s expense report is more than my monthly salary. [Side bar: I’ve actually been on “dates” where the guy expensed our drink bill.] They don’t wait until green pus oozes out of their nose before even CONSIDERING going to the doctor. They have this little luxury called paid time off. They don’t pay for coffee. I bet they actually go to the dentist.

Not gonna lie, I’ve been to the dentist five times in my life thanks to my parents being self-employed. Never had a cavity. Never needed braces. Thank you God, for the perfect teeth gene pool.

When I was little, I fantasized about working for a company like Deloitte. I had this vision of being a badass bitch in an airport, wearing a thousand dollar suit, racing to catch a plane for my next (very important) client meeting. I thought it was in my genetic makeup—that because I was born a competitive, driven person, I would automatically love a life resembling Jessica Pearson in Suits.

Come to think of it, I love everything about the idea of working for a large, prestigious firm. EXCEPT THE PART ABOUT WORKING FOR A LARGE FIRM.

You might say I would completely despise it.

For those of you who only know me as this swearing-like-a-sailor freelancer who only wears ripped jeans and washes her hair twice a week, let me give you a small back-story. I tried that life. Straight out of college, I worked for a high net worth investment consulting firm. I was Series 7 certified. My sales quota was a million. My largest prospect was a $6 billion bank in South Bend Indiana, and they thought this twenty-two year old hunny from Iowa was the most delightful thing they ever spoke to.

And oh my Lord did I hate it.

To start, I hated finance. FINANCE! Finance is pretty hard to avoid when working in investments. I hated cold calling. I hated listening to my coworkers cold calling. I hated PowerPoints. I hated HR. I hated feeling inauthentic. Corporate jargon became an absolute recurring hell that was my life.

Most days, I wake up and love my life. Others, I wake up in a blind state of panic thinking I’ll go broke or that proposal won’t get signed or I’m going to get hit by a bus and be screwed because my health insurance deductible is laughable or I have no idea what I’m doing or MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, I SHOULD GO WORK FOR A “REAL” COMPANY. Like DELOITTE.

I am sure you have these days too.

No matter how happy you are, you will always fantasize about a life where you are happier.

But…would you? If you are reading this, I’m to assume you’re an adult and therefore you’ve had twenty, thirty, or fifty years to discover what you do, and do not enjoy. You know if you prefer city to country life. You know if you value reasonable health insurance over job flexibility. You know if you prefer driving vs. walking to work, affordability vs. convenience, cardio vs. lifting, the cost-savings of having a roommate vs. the sanity of living on your own, and roughly ten BILLION other things which you can, or cannot, like.

Therefore, every time you have one of these grass-is-always greener moments, you can stop yourself and realize that flowery meadow you’re gazing at is actually a barren-ass desert you want no part of.

When we pursue things we don’t actually want, it sets us back and distracts us from the life we want to build. When I’ve gotten myself in trouble in the past—including getting fired, moving across state lines, and other life-altering situations—it was because I chose to ignore what I knew in my heart to be the thing I wanted, and went after something I did not.

“From everything you’ve told me about working for Deloitte, I’m 90 percent certain I would hateeeeee it.” I told him.

You already know what you want. So go after it.