I'm still a little spun out by the whole "did they lie or was the truth just weirder" thing, but I'm getting to the point where now I just want to be past it. Which brings me to the title of this blog. Seizing happiness.
I'm not sure why it takes a person so long to learn this one. Some people never seem to learn it at all. Happiness is something that is within our control to at least a certain extent. If not by circumstance, then surely by how we choose to react to circumstance.
Circumstance happiness is easy. We land a great job, marry the love of our life, own a large beautiful home, become wealthy or famous. Those are some of the common goals of all humans and they bring with them a certain amount of happiness. Growing up I heard "it's just as easy to love a rich man as a poor man" and other material wealth sayings. They elude to happiness via "things". Yet despite this I'm sure each of us can name at least one person we know or know of that is miserable even though they have "arrived". There must be more to it.
There are people who are happy that have only modest or less possessions or acclaim. Musicians, athletes or even just the guy next door that has an all consuming hobby. They have embraced a passion that seems to make them impervious to living in a shoebox sized dwelling, being married to the crabbiest nastiest spouse or is constantly scraping about to meet the most basic of needs. We sometimes look at them as "simple" because we cannot appreciate their lack of what we consider basics. I see them as somewhat more "pure" than the rest of us. I'm not there, and wonder if perhaps I will ever be.
So that leaves the rest of us. Trying to balance embracing our passion with acquiring the material things. It's hard to figure out what keeps us from being happy. Sometimes it seems just within our grasp. You can see it, hear it, smell it, taste it but not touch it. Happiness is the fastest most fleeting thing in the universe. I want to believe that you can capture it if you somehow lay a trap that makes you irresistable to it.
In my case I think in order to seize some happiness I'm going to have to let go some of my expectations. Choose to be happy with what I have in hand. Accept things as "just the way it is" and "beyond my sphere of control". Look very hard at what I do have and glean every precious ounce of goodness and happiness that it may hold. With any luck that elusive creature we call happiness may find my efforts irresistable and wander over to where I am and dwell with me as a friend.
