Sometimes life throws things at you and you've got nuthin'...each way you turn you seem to encounter a road block. I've got a couple solutions when life sends me down a dead end. The first is dancing.
While dancing is awesome, sometimes the clubs are closed and dancing around in your room just isn't going to cut it! That brings me to my second solution. Biking!
Today was such a day, where I was again facing something that has (at least at the moment) no solution. I'm very good at falling down that rabbit hole where my mental wheels will spin and I won't actually get anywhere. When I feel that I'm falling into this trap, it's time to get the other wheels spinning. So, I put on my happy t-shirt...
...and went for a ride.
While neither dancing nor riding actually solves anything, it does allow me to push a personal reset button...and now I want another happy t-shirt that says "Bicycle Doggy Chariots Make Me Happy!"
There's a lot of stuff out there that says you have to find your own happiness, follow your bliss and choose to be happy, blah, blah, blah...but they leave out an important point, happiness, is often, a two part invention. Unless you are a hermit living alone on a mountain top, your happiness will be linked, in part, to your interpersonal relationships (and I don't just mean romantic relationships, I mean all relationships with other people).
Now don't get me wrong. I do think you are ultimately responsible for your own happiness and if you are searching for happiness in others, it's time to stop and figure out what you want to be happy and satisfied with your life...but this is not what I set out to write about.
To get to know someone, whether it's a romantic relationship, a deep friendship or a family member, you have to put some of your happiness into their hands...to fall into happiness with someone. To be able to have this kind of deep resonant happiness you have to trust and be vulnerable. This is your gift to them and their gift to you. This doesn't mean that you're not responsible for your own happiness. What it means is, initially (and continually) in any relationship you have to let go a little and put some of your happiness in someone else's hands to see if it is valued, cherished.
If you take that risk and fall into happiness with someone and they do not value your happiness, you'll keep falling and hit the ground with a thud. It is ok to thud, maybe even a couple times, (the person you are falling with is human after all, and we all make mistakes, we all drop someone's heart at some point). But, if every time you leap you hit the ground (thud), then it is time to stop falling. They are not falling with you into happiness and they are not going to catch you. It is time to step back from the edge and take back the responsibility for your happiness again.
I think one of the most tricky things is to be able to hurtle yourself off that cliff into happiness again after you've had a few thuds (though it can also be equally as hard to stop jumping with the same person if you are hopeful they will change).
So here's my point, I guess... Don't be afraid to let go and leap off the edge into happiness with someone, but stop falling if you keep on hitting the ground.
Has it really been a year since my last post on this topic?! What a difference a year makes!! ...er, maybe not. Still looking for magic...more than that, I'm looking for someone who embodies this quote.
"Happy, smile. Sad, frown. Use the corresponding face
with the corresponding emotion."
-Meg Ryan, French Kiss.
I strive to be real, honest and genuine with all people who come into my life (it's not always possible, but I really do try!) ...and I don't think it's too much to ask that people try and do the same in return.
I seem to keep finding magic with people whose outside doesn't match their inside...and in trying to navigate such interpersonal relationships, I feel like I am being forced to not live up to this quote. I find in this is vacuum of genuineness and honesty my ability to honestly convey the genuine me is diminished. (Could I squeeze in any more derivations of the word honest and genuine into that sentence?!! ;-) )
I don't want to be diminished, I don't want (to be) less, I want (to be) MORE, damn it!!
It's disheartening, banging my head against a metaphorical wall, and makes me feel like I'm somehow doing it wrong...like that little sign I always see at festivals "you're doing it right" is somehow wrong and does not apply to me... I am trying very hard to be optimistic and have hope. For nearly ten years I have had hope...but hope is beginning to wearing thin...
Words aren't always sufficient in conveying thought. This song, however, is hitting the mark pretty well.
