You think it’s because you’re single and are going to die alone. You think it’s because you never became the doctor your parents always hoped you’d become. Or because you can’t write the novel swimming around inside you head. You think it’s because the barista spelled your name wrong on your coffee cup—on purpose. You think it’s because you get cut off in traffic, because your sister won’t call you back, because your kids won’t take care of the dog they promised they would pick after if only you bought it.
But it’s not.
I know why you’re not happy.
You’re not happy because you’re giving your happiness away to things outside your control. You’re letting the circumstances of the world, the people in your life determine whether or not you’re allowed to be happy instead of choosing happiness for yourself.
That’s not to say you can’t be pissed at the misspelled name, you can’t be frustrated with your kids, that you can’t be sad you had a miscarriage, you can’t be disappointed your art didn’t sell or your business failed. That’s not to say you can’t feel your feelings.
It’s to say that you’re holding onto them, you’re forcing them down, you’re refusing to feel them and they’re getting stuck in your body, in your psyche—everywhere. And you’re convincing yourself that all you have to do is read another self-help book, that all you have to do is put on another Netflix series and distract yourself from the world, find a new love, get a new job, published the book, film the series, make the money, take the vacation.
But none of that will make you happy.
And you’re going to continue to do that again and again (and again and again and again and again) until you realize that happiness was within you all along. That it was within your power to let go, to accept what’s in front of you, to love it all: the good, the bad, the messy. Because that’s what you’re here for.
Because this world is chaotic, it’s paradoxical, it doesn’t make sense.
And you can either fight that and be miserable or you can embrace it. You can learn to love it. Not in spite of the chaos and pain and human experience, but because you’ve already chosen to be happy and all of those things can’t take that away from you.