This post originally appeared here in Illumination.
You Still Believe The World Is A Beautiful Place Even Though You Don't See It Right Now
Life is not linear. It’s a continuous cycle of ups and downs. There are more constraints and limitations than we care to accept. Unfortunately, conflicting needs are constantly battling for our attention.
If you’re experiencing downtime right now, know that you’re not alone.
Happiness is only fleeting when it is embraced as a feeling, a sensation to be enjoyed while it is here. We don’t always ‘feel’ happy but we can ‘be’ happy regardless of circumstances. It is more accurate to define happiness as a state of being.
Many have mistakenly believed that happiness is the absence of heartache and struggle. As long as you drown yourself in the episode, you continue to feel sad. But there will come a day when the tears dried up. The hurt and devastation morphed into determination.
That’s when you bounce back and decide to be happy. It’s not that you’ve stopped feeling sad, it’s just that you’ve had enough and no longer wanted to be associated with that state. You choose to ‘be’ happy.
Sure, you may still struggle. Sometimes even continue to suffer the impact, but you continue to keep going. You understand that happiness, which is true gratification, is shrouded in the struggle. You muster up the courage to face the challenges that give you the traction needed to move forward. Because you choose to ‘be’ happy.
You begin to see that every life has a purpose and that you’ve come to this earth to fulfill yours.
So it’s not about the destination or about setting your eyes on the prize, although that can be helpful. But it’s more worthwhile to focus on the journey, to find joy in your simple everyday life. To intentionally look for the silver lining in every cloud. If you care to look, it is always there, because you choose to ‘be’ happy.
Life is tough for everyone, and change is constant. Although you may like the stability and safety of the status quo, you know that unless you’re willing to adapt and overcome, you’ll likely get frustrated, impatient, and mad when things get shaken up. So you’re not afraid of change and you won’t run from challenges. You understand that the challenges in your life presented itself as an opportunity for your growth.
It can seem disruptive at the moment, but when you push past your comfort zone to confront your challenges, you become more confident.
Once you break through your habitual orbit, a whole new universe awaits you on the other side. And so you persevere because you choose to ‘be’ happy.
Pain is inevitable. It’s a horrible fact of life. The news alert is, you’ll not feel better by drowning yourself in the pool of depression, becoming obese, or shutting out the entire world. Pain is not solid or permanent. It has no story, despite your many attempts to give it one. It appears and then dissolves over time.
So you suck it up and quit fighting.
You realize that the stories you tell yourself in your mind far exceeds that of the actual pain. You stop allowing the suffering you create in your mind to take away the precious moments you have now because you choose to ‘be’ happy.
Suffering occurs when you resist how things are. You choose to let go by allowing yourself to move through the pain and hopefully one day, feel something different.
You take advantage of life’s inherent challenges because that’s what makes it possible for you to thrive. It produces progress. It makes you think. It makes you assess the situation and take the necessary actions to change. Without challenges and the weight of your load, there would be nothing to overcome and nothing to achieve.
Original Photo by Alex Azabache from Pexels
You used to hate it when people point out that happiness depends on perspective because it puts the load of responsibility back on you.
Now you understand, that’s just what it is. If you think something is a problem, your thoughts and emotions will align and agree with you. That will give you more reason to be negative.
But if you look at it from a fresh perspective and see it as a lesson, all of a sudden, everything looks different. So you shift because you choose to ‘be’ happy.
or too long, you’ve been your greatest enemy. You won’t allow yourself to have fun. And worse, you don’t even know how to be happy because you’ve sat in the pool of grief so long that you’ve become addicted to your problems and chaos. It has become your identity.
You assumed that when your circumstances change for the better, you will change too. But you have it backward.
The world is simply reflecting back to you the condition of your inner self.
And so you got out of your own way. For a long time, you were a “victim” of your own thoughts, words, and actions. You realize now that no one does anything to you. You were the creator of your own experience.
Becoming stagnant is the quickest way to ensure you never fully optimize your potential. You can’t fully appreciate the good without experiencing the sting of the bad. That denial will doom you to a life of mediocrity.
There is nothing you can do that could bring you happiness. It was not lost. You have taken your attention off it, momentarily. Now, you’re turning your life around so you’ll not risk living the same routine for the rest of your time.
Life seems uncertain for you right, but you recognize you are fully capable to take back control.
Most importantly, you believe the world is still a beautiful place even though you can’t see it right now.
You believe because you choose to ‘be’ happy.
