Inside and Out

On the outside, everything looks perfect. Not a hair misplaced, a smile forgotten, a laugh missing. Happiness though, is a fickle thing. One minute, you're laughing and smiling, you feel your insides warm and fuzzy, your smile is so big it feels as if you can’t control the feelings building inside of you. And then… it’s just gone, leaving behind a void to be filled with something else. Sadness? Anger?

Happiness is like the feeling when you're slowly drifting off to sleep, smiling lazily at the amazing feeling of gently floating away… right before you start to spiral down a never-ending tunnel and startle awake, feeling confused and unsettled.

It comes and goes, changing into feelings you didn’t know would come after happiness… feelings like anger, resentment, hate, misery, fear, sadness, regret, judgement.

It always starts off the same, warm and comforting, easing your mind, healing your soul. It shines brightly in your eyes, makes your skin glow and everyone around you stare in awe, or envy, wondering if maybe happiness is a real, attainable goal. Feeling the happiness seeps off you surrounding them, making them start to contemplate their own existence, wondering if maybe they’re living their life all wrong. Then the analyzing begins of every wrong turn they’ve made, every misspoken word, every bad judgement call. Feelings of regret start building, along with the determination to do better. Becoming more aware of every word they speak and decision they make, for a moment the feeling of happiness builds in their chest. They are aware of themselves enough to start enacting change of behavior. And that moment right there… is usually what sends them tumbling down the mountain they’ve just attempted to climb. Suddenly, the judgement starts, judging themselves for choosing the same reaction that makes them unhappy. They start to doubt their desire to want to do better, resenting themselves for not following through. Anger takes hold as they continuously beat themselves up for not choosing correctly but still, the determination exists, the determination to change bad habits and find happiness. And so, the cycle repeats.

Eventually, they change some small part of themselves and for a brief moment, as they acknowledge that change, they feel happiness… that is until they realize how minuscule a change it made in being perfect, a goal they don’t realize they associate with true happiness.

But that’s just the path you take looking from a third perspective. The path laid out for the person who seems to have achieved happiness in all its perfection, that path has different demons lying in wait. Sometimes, these demons trick you into thinking you’ve found true happiness, one that shines so bright it makes everything else seem dim and useless. It whispers in your ear that you’ve overcome your demons, you’re a changed person, you are so self-aware that making mistakes rarely happens and if they do your undoubtably capable of resolving them without experiencing the negative feelings that fill the void of happiness. So, for a time, the happiness stays. You dance with joy as you clean, you greet your husband at the door with a smile, you spin your daughter ‘round and ‘round until your both dizzy, stumbling around with laughter bubbling in your chest.

You think to yourself, “Wow, I’ve really never been happier” and you mean it, there has not been a time in your life where you’ve stayed this happy for this long. Making every right choice, doing everything you need to do. And then comes the moment you feel that happiness disappears. Sometimes, anger replaces it. Sometimes it’s sadness. Sometimes it’s fear. The one feeling that always makes its way into the void without fail, is resentment. Resentment of yourself for not being perfect, for not conquering yourself, for making a choice you committed to never making again. Then comes the hate, always following resentment like two old pals here to remind you of the good ole days, the days you remember being filled with misery.

Happiness and misery cannot co-exist and so, in the end everyone chooses misery. May take them a hundred tries at happiness, may take them a thousand. In the end, after fighting repeatedly to keep the hope that one day you’ll achieve this perfect, ideal person you’ve created in your head, you give up. Self-awareness, something you once saw as the steppingstones to happiness, becomes the wall that prevents you from achieving it.

Do you see it now? The true enemy is not happiness, self-awareness, misery, anger or hate. It’s expectation, judgement and perception. If we lived in a world where mistakes weren’t made, where perfection existed, happiness wouldn’t have a place in our life. We wouldn’t have failed 100 times just to succeed the 101st and feel that moment of happiness where all our effort pays off. If we lived in a world of perfection, we wouldn’t feel joy in that moment we finally decide to respond with love and not anger. If we lived in a world of perfection, we would not have the opportunity to understand that our happiness comes from overcoming one obstacle at a time and each small moment of happiness we get from that is a moment to be cherished for it will disappear and when it does, we will have another chance to find our happiness. Maybe life isn’t about one day achieving perfection. Maybe life is truly just about accepting the bad and learning to love the gift of happiness it can bring if you let it.