It's warm outside, the wind is blowing gently and the view isn't quite the same through glass windows...not to mention the air is way too cold in here. Life can be so bittersweet sometimes. The pleasures that are allowed to you from being born into this world seem within reach, and yet the opportunities that are supposed to help you reach them might be the very things that keep you from them.
We work our entire lives to have more time off, more money, more leisure, more pleasure. We are in a never ending battle to find contentment in a constant state of strive. We all want that dream house, that car, to go on that amazing vacation--but, in order to have those things, we need to work our butts off. Where is the peace in that and how do we find the balance?
I tangle in this twisted confusion of yearning and hope and don't know if I am digging my heels in deeper to prepare me for the inevitable or starting to scratch the surface to learn the route in which to escape. How can I find the way out if I don't know which way I should be headed? Should I long for escape, or should I stand firmly in the present and change my way of thinking? Is it fair that I need to change my way of thinking? Why does the world work in such a way that if something isn't right, we need to change the way we think about it in order for it to be right? Apparently, I am hoping that I can scratch my way out of this tiny box, and climb out on top since I seem so against changing my way of thinking to accommodate the world around me. Everyone says if you can't change something, change the way you think about it, but why do we need to do that? Should we push to change it anyway? Are we winning with ourselves if we change our way of thinking or giving into the world?
I recently learned that the definition of happiness is haphazard; the root, "hap" literally translates into haphazard. Happiness results in the pleasure or attainment of what is good. It is temporary--it is all about the circumstances and the environment that surround us. Wow, that explains a lot! No wonder we, as Americans, spend most of our time unhappy. The circumstances around us are getting worse as time passes. You start off as an innocent child and, for those fortunate enough, have a blissful childhood without fear or worry...however-each passing year is the real live fate that brings you closer to the peaceful world around you turning into a big slippery slope of reality. You get older, have to find a real job, and a real life that consists of paying bills and, therefore, having to work most of your life to eventually enjoy the things later in life that you once did as a kid. We get caught up in a mess of longing for what used to be, searching for the comfortable sameness we had, wanting to get back to the time when the circumstances around us, "made" us happy.
The thing the world is looking for is not happiness. We have been teaching children and adults alike to strive for the wrong feeling. We are being set-up for failure before we have a chance. What we as a world are looking for, is joy. Pure joy. Joy is the innate. It is not the cause of the circumstances around us, it is a state of being. We can not always choose the circumstances around us, but we can choose to be content in whatever the circumstance. That is where the , "change the way you think about the situation" comes into play. It's not saying the world wins and you lose. It is, in fact, stating the opposite- that we can choose to win over everything around us. We are a being who can be filled with joy, or who can search for a chance of happiness. We have to stop looking for the wrong "noun, " and start living a life filled with innate joy. Get up and go to work knowing that it will pay your bills and award you a free-er future. It will send your kids to a good school so they can have a life as beautiful as yours. Go, knowing that you are blessed enough to have an education that allowed you to get that job or career. "Live a life worthy of the calling you have received." Ephesians 4:1.
Maybe it is, all just a state-of-mind, and maybe....just maybe, it's a real life change.
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