Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.
What have we been taught to pursue that makes us fell so desolate to the experience itself?
By definition, happiness (noun) is:
the state of being happy.
Not a place.
Not a person.
Not a job or car or beautiful boy with a shining ring in his left pocket.
I have been traveling to some of the most beautiful places (in my personal opinion), eating some of the most delicious food, meeting some of the most remarkable people (also a personal opinion, but I’ll stand by it) and yet the mental preconception that I “haven’t arrived” at any finish line has been leaking all over me.
Why can’t I feel it?
Better yet, why can’t any of us?
Why do we strive for beauty but move past it when we see it? Why do we ache for companionship but muddle away when we are held? Why do we search for fulfillment in places, things, others in this human experience we call life?
I was doing the dishes,
(One of the two places meaningful conversations tend to be conceived in my life. Cars are also a vessel of intimacy but I’m currently on a continent that primarily runs on a metro system…)
and speaking with a new found friend.
Her words swept across me like the cool damp dish towel on the porcelain I was holding.
“We’ve been taught that happiness is the end. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty… we see that after adversity comes happiness, and then the story is over. But that doesn’t have to be real life. After hardship comes happiness, and then more happiness. It doesn’t have to be the end. You can have more.”
Though I am sure I’m butchering her beautifully crafted english through a french lens, the sentiment remains.
Happiness isn’t a destination. Rather, it is a comma.
At least in the God I believe in’s ways.
I have yet to lance out my neural plasticity the things I’ve been taught by fairy tales (these practices have helped. S/O Dr. Huberman).
But I am trying. Trying to take back the pen from Disney and fables and movies and songs that have tricked me into believing happiness means the end of the story.
When really, it’s just the beginning.