"Best Practice."

There is this term I recently noticed being used a lot at the office: best practice. A graphic designer kept saying it in reference to how buttons on a website should be placed. I decided to research the phrase a little. Here is a definition of it from Wikipedia:

Best practices can also be defined as the most efficient (least amount of effort) and effective (best results) way of accomplishing a task, based on repeatable procedures that have proven themselves over time for large numbers of people.

I can see how it would make sense to go with the "best practice" on things like an accounting method or button position on websites. It's the way most proven to get results. Sure, use it! Then I thought about life. A lot, A LOT, of people follow "best practice" as a way to live. As an American adult, it seems "best practice" is to go to college, graduate, get a job working 50 weeks a year (whether you like it or not), enjoy your weekends and 2 weeks of vacation, start a 401K, get married, buy a house in the suburbs, vote, have kids, raise them in a church (regardless of whether or not you even believe in what the church says), send them to college and watch them follow in your footsteps and live the exact same way you did because, well hey, it's obviously the "best practice" of life.

(Deep breathe)

I personally don't think "best practice" is the same thing as "most fulfilling". Not that someone who lives that way can't be fulfilled...they could absolutely love their lives. And I hope they do. But I think everyone's life practice can be different; and should be different. People need to figure out how to live in a way that fulfills them and LIVE IT....block the noise coming from the "best practice" society.

I feel odd. I feel restless. I feel a bit like I did before taking off in Fall of '06. It's not that I'm unhappy. I'm actually very happy. I just don't feel fulfilled. I think I need change... maybe I'm living too "best practice"-y. I need to feel ALIVE...all the time; every day.