The How to my Happiness
It was in the dreary caravan park, where I saw around me many caravans; all the same but different, that I came to the realisation that I had been more attached to my 'how' than my happiness. I had longed to surrender but had been unable, unwilling, and unrelenting in the search for something or someone to surrender to.
In the digital pages of a kindle book, words read but not written, I had found the missing puzzle pieces to an elusive quest for fulfillment. I thought I had been looking for happiness. I suddenly found I'd been looking for the 'how' to my happiness. The question of what I needed to do to make myself happy had plagued me for the better part of two years. I'd battled with the idea of needing to 'let it happen', tormented myself with the 'knowledge' that I couldn't 'force' anything to happen and that pushing for something was as effective as pushing against it when really you didn't want to push at all. The merry go round of spiritual laws in contradiction was ceaseless. I was bone, dog, stone, tired.
Whenever I thought of surrendering I was filled with dread. As an autonomous being, the thought of handing my fate over to some higher power sent shivers up my spine, and worse it felt wrong to say - here you do it. I knew that kind of attitude would lead to a stagnant waiting, and ultimately, a torrential battering to my faith when the 'something' I wanted didn't land on my lap.
The trouble is, I'd forgotten that when the blanket of secure, dependable life was yanked out from under my feet, never to return again, I had made a promise to follow my happiness. I had gotten so caught up in how to make myself happy, that I'd forgotten that was the goal. It had become a search for a 'how to'. I'd gotten it the wrong way round. I didn't need to surrender my happiness, I needed to surrender my how.
In a sense, it's really just surrendering to yourself. Decide to be happy. Then trust that a higher power, that lives within and beyond you, will lead you there. You don't need to know what makes you happy, or if it even if it always will, you just need to assign happiness as the goal and apply it to every moment of your life. Do things that make you feel happier even when they make you feel confused, afraid, uncomfortable, insane, foolish, contradictory, blissful.
Oh and don't expect the world to understand; the others are still chasing the 'How' to their happiness.
In the digital pages of a kindle book, words read but not written, I had found the missing puzzle pieces to an elusive quest for fulfillment. I thought I had been looking for happiness. I suddenly found I'd been looking for the 'how' to my happiness. The question of what I needed to do to make myself happy had plagued me for the better part of two years. I'd battled with the idea of needing to 'let it happen', tormented myself with the 'knowledge' that I couldn't 'force' anything to happen and that pushing for something was as effective as pushing against it when really you didn't want to push at all. The merry go round of spiritual laws in contradiction was ceaseless. I was bone, dog, stone, tired.
Whenever I thought of surrendering I was filled with dread. As an autonomous being, the thought of handing my fate over to some higher power sent shivers up my spine, and worse it felt wrong to say - here you do it. I knew that kind of attitude would lead to a stagnant waiting, and ultimately, a torrential battering to my faith when the 'something' I wanted didn't land on my lap.
The trouble is, I'd forgotten that when the blanket of secure, dependable life was yanked out from under my feet, never to return again, I had made a promise to follow my happiness. I had gotten so caught up in how to make myself happy, that I'd forgotten that was the goal. It had become a search for a 'how to'. I'd gotten it the wrong way round. I didn't need to surrender my happiness, I needed to surrender my how.
In a sense, it's really just surrendering to yourself. Decide to be happy. Then trust that a higher power, that lives within and beyond you, will lead you there. You don't need to know what makes you happy, or if it even if it always will, you just need to assign happiness as the goal and apply it to every moment of your life. Do things that make you feel happier even when they make you feel confused, afraid, uncomfortable, insane, foolish, contradictory, blissful.
Oh and don't expect the world to understand; the others are still chasing the 'How' to their happiness.