I’ve read a lot of books in my lifetime. I have walked many paths and sought out many avenues; all in the attempt to find happiness. But despite all the “work” I did, happiness would often elude me. This didn’t stop me from searching and of course, over time I learned that happiness cannot be found from outside sources, but must come from within. But what many of the books and therapists failed to explain to me is that happiness is also a learned behavior. It is difficult to achieve something you cannot grasp, something you have not experienced and therefore wouldn’t quite know when you have found it. In the end, it is like asking another how it feels to be high when you never took drugs.
In concept it always sounds so easy. Reading all the self-help books anyone could ever ask for, sternly following the instructions and wondering what I did wrong, because it didn’t quite work that way for me. I remember getting frustrated, especially when reading crap like “The Secret.” I was supposed to have no attachment to anything, while not having any “bad” thoughts and banishing any thought of anger, sadness, despair, hate or fear. I felt that a lot of these books asked me to stop being human. And each time I failed, I figured it had to be me. Maybe I was too (<–insert bad thing here) and not enough of something other and apparently, caused all the bad things in my life.
It took many years, and might take me yet a few more, to realize that happiness is actually hard work; for me that is. I realized that it requires a shift in who I am and how I perceive the world and most importantly, it would require me to take every day actions that would eventually overwrite my faulty hardwiring. The same hardwiring that kept playing messages in my head that were not true, but nonetheless real and influential to me. I’ve spent thousands of dollars in therapy, training, and anything else that claimed to change who I am. I was willing to try, well, I thought whatever it took, and boy, did I miss the point, many times.
See, there is a price that comes with happiness. At least that is what I have encountered. For me, happiness sometimes requires to be selfish. Something I am not good at, because I keep confusing taking care of myself as being selfish. Sometimes happiness means to be firm when you just want to give in, because it is easier. It may mean to give up people and situations you’ve known for years and sticking with someone or something you’ve never known and therefore can’t predict. Sometimes happiness means that you have to drop a lifetime of inauthenticity, blow up your life and all you know and are comfortable with; and how many of us are able to do that? Happiness is learned and requires practice; and the actions one has to take to be happy often seem daunting, frightening and downright lonely.
Sure, I’ll break down and I get angry and resentful, hating on those who have robbed me of the tools to create what I have always searched so desperately. But at the end of the day, nothing can change the past. I have the responsibility to stop whatever cycle I am in. I have to be the one who takes charge and that task seems overwhelming and too much at times. But what if I wake up one day and realize that I pissed away my chance to be the best I can be and have the life I was meant to have, because I was too scared and too complacent to walk within my own truth; and allowed my core to shine?
What they never tell you in the books is that it takes a bomb. Blow it all up. Blow your life to smithereens and start rebuilding from ground up. Maybe, just maybe, instead of looking at ruins, you will find that you were given at blank canvas to create, paint and be whomever you were meant to be. And maybe, just maybe, it requires to stop fearing what others may think of you and learning that you are the most important one in your own life and that you owe it to yourself to learn happiness. Happiness – I am learning it. And no, it doesn’t seem easy or natural. Alas, I am doing it…
