Ironically, moving towards happiness can be a miserable task. At the very least, it’s difficult and confusing leaving many to give up along the way. Well, nothing worth having comes at any easy task.
T h e s a m e i s t r u e f o r h a p p i n e s s .
Happy is a concept I’ve touched on very strongly and vividly in my up coming book The Third Return ( It’s really coming soon!) One, I believe, most important to include in my story in order to come a little closer in understanding violence and why woman (men too) might choose to stay with an abuser.
Looking back on Mom’s many attempts to move towards her own happiness has ignited a thriving passion in me to allow it, breathe it and feel it in everything I decide to do in my life. As you’ll eventually read in my book, Mom’s every decision was an attempt to move towards something greater. She was always trying to make happy apart of our lives and keep it there if he threatened it.
Without knowing it, she has shown me to choose happiness over fear. Love over fear. Always. Now years later in my 20s, happiness is at the forefront of every decision I make. It wasn’t always, but it is now. So, I’ve wondered how that happened? Happiness might be kind of important, right? Since everything we ever tried to do with our lives made a relentless effort to keep it, attain it or create it.
In the moments when our decisions were not underlined with happiness, and many of them were not, then the outcomes, as you’ll read, speak for themselves. With betrayal, guilt, resentment being the “I told you so” we tried to ignore. What I mean in all of this is… if happiness is not the reason you are doing what you’re doing, then
w h y a r e
y o u d o i n g i t ?
Why are you exerting effort into something that isn’t making your heart’s cup overflow?
To be fair, let’s say you didn’t know. Maybe, in the beginning you thought it would make you happy because yes, happiness takes trial and error. Whatever it was (stealing all that money, starting that new relationship, moving into that new house, getting that new car, taking that vacation, doing those drugs, etc.) that has you wasting so much energy, if it’s no longer bringing you happiness then why have you continued to engage it? Why is it there? Like a house guest who’s overstayed their welcome; why are you still letting them stay?
Eventually there comes a point where as much as we’d like to, we can’t pretend we don’t know anymore. Now you know that money, relationship, house, car, vacation, drugs isn’t making you happy. Don’t worry. Life is gentle and does give us a few chances to get it right. But now, you’ve realized that thing isn’t working. What do we do? Well, many just move onto the next thing they think will bring happiness.
Sometimes they score; finding the thing that lasts forever, but more often then not, the same cycle is repeated. We go back to the same relationship, buy another, car, another house, take another vacation, try different, cooler drugs. Why? Life is only going to give you so many chances to get things right, so
F o c u s P e o p l e !
We don’t want to admit it, but we have a really bad habit of getting in our own way. Almost always really. It’s true, just accept it. Whether angry, prideful, disappointed, guilty; it all gets in the way.
There can be a plethora of reasons why you’re not finding happiness, but to save time, one important reason I believe is because we’re stuck on the belief that people, places or things are suppose to bring us happiness. Mindlessly, we place our hopes on the likelihood that something or someone will deliver happiness to us instead, of realizing that we create it for ourselves: first mistake. A mistake those living with violence struggle to see; the victim and the abuser.
Second mistake: believing that something as valuable as happiness even took on a shape of a person, place or thing. C’mon.
Remember when I said sometimes we score and find the thing that last forever? Well, there’s no single answer as to what that is because there’s only one you and nothing that works for Jenny is going to work for Sarah. And what works for John, will make Jim wants to jump from a cliff.
H a p p i n e s s i s y o u r j o u r n e y ;
something only for you to find. Take this beautiful soul for example lighting her own torch on the path of happy; Shay http://www.shayslifeoflemons.com.
So, I’m not sorry if you’ve read thus far and thought some profound answer would await at the end. You had the answer even before you started reading. You’re your own answer. Embrace that! Stay true to yourself. Eliminate the pile of garbage that’s blocking your happy path and go. Try something new. Fail; (Don’t be afraid of this). Try again. Keep searching and don’t over complicate it. Because
H a p p y i s H a p p y ; n o t h i n g e l s e.
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You Beautiful Life 