True happiness seems to be on everyone’s list.
And why shouldn’t it be? Why wouldn’t we want utter and true happiness every single day of our lives?
Well most of us do want it, but for whatever reason it seems completely out of our grasp.
We catch glimpses of the happiness, but mostly we keep reaching for it hoping to obtain more and more without much success.
It’s elusiveness can be staggering.
See for the better part of my life I have been perplexed as how to obtain true happiness. I’ve always thought if I did this task better or did that job to the hilt true happiness would find me. If I kept working harder, at basically everything in my life, at some point I’d get to a point of true happiness. If I did everything correctly and kept my nose to the grindstone surely it would come my way, right?
As the years went on I kept working harder and basically ended up burning myself out.
I ended up miserable, tired and burnt out multiple times throughout my life. But every time I prevailed. I overcame the way I felt hoping to continue on a path that would make me happier. I would ignore my feelings, take a deep breath and hide them away inside, far away where I wouldn’t have to deal with them.
I went on like this for awhile. Living life, but never feeling truly happy.
Then in January I was let go from a job. A job that I thought was going to be my big break into becoming what I define as a “real working professional”. A job that not only didn’t end up being any of those things, but actually was much, much worse on so many levels. It was extremely painful to have poured your heart and soul into something and simply be told, “there’s the door”.
Instead of working harder, for the first time EVER I leaned into the pain. I let myself feel whatever I wanted to feel. I held nothing back. I didn’t worry what it looked like to others. I was real with myself.
And you want to know what?
It was…
freeing.
I completely surrendered to the emotions I was feeling.
If I didn’t want to do something, I didn’t.
If I didn’t care to go out, I didn’t.
If I wanted to go to bed right after the kids at 8:00 pm, I did.
I cried, I listened to angry music, I wrote, I read, I laughed until I cried again.
And slowly after a month of being on an emotional rollercoaster full of twists and turns it was my turn to get off.
And after dusting myself off, I felt different. I felt changed.
This moment in my life, which I thought was parts of my world crashing down around me, led me on a path of true happiness.
It was during this time I realized that I’ve always been constantly looking for more when really I should have been able to see what was right in front of me the entire time.
I realized that I don’t have to work harder to be the best I can be at everything. It’s okay to be “good enough” at some things. For example, I have always wanted a “real professional” job. I thought that’s what would make me happy. Then I worked a “real professional” job and it was definitely not all it was cracked up to be. Long hours, low pay, poor management.
How is that true happiness?
It’s not.
But I’ll tell you what is.
Learning that the things you do in life don’t always have to be outrageously awesome all the time based on the status quo. Coming to the realization and accepting that your life is fantastically awesome for what it is already is where the true happiness lies.
True happiness lies in the way you live your life everyday.
And after a long time feeling at odds with finding true happiness I feel like I’ve finally found it. There’s a lightness that wasn’t there before. There’s a realization that maybe there isn’t always more to life, maybe life is just “good enough” and that’s okay. In fact it’s actually amazing because when you realize this you’re able to let go of all your preconceived notions of what should be or what should have happened and just be happy with what actually is.
Are you searching for true happiness? What have you found that truly makes you happy?
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