Happiness

I've read piles of self-help books that supposedly teach you how to live the life you want be the person you want to be.  Those books are about how to better meet your own expectations, to appease your ego.  To identify and seek your desires.  Desire is a holy path; it is in obtaining the object of desire and finding it dissatisfying, that you may begin to turn within.  To those on this path, Godspeed and more power to you!

My desire was to be happy.  Whenever I was upset, I thought there must absolutely be a way to stop this from happening.  For years I trailed after and questioned individuals who said they had it figured out.  I pursued them, far from bliss, to their inmost worlds, their secret thoughts and darkest moments.  Where I was able to see how empty their pretending had made them.

The revelation was demoralizing, draining, but also a relief.  By pulling back the curtain on people who hide in shame over their negative emotions, I realized that life is 'round about (or maybe exactly!) a fifty-fifty mix of good and bad, joy and suffering.  I found that, just as much in my sobbing, raging, terrified self as in my curious, creative, radiant self, I am just like everyone else.

And that's A-okay!  And that has made all the difference.

So have a good day!  Or better yet, a day that is exactly half good and half bad, but full of understanding and acceptance.