It takes a lot of work to find "happy", if it isn't something you're used to feeling. I mean, there is the whole happy-go-lucky thing that it seems children are born with, and I'm one of those. I didn't have a lot of worries as a kid. In fact, still to this day I am not a worrier by nature. I had one irrational fear when I was really little, that my house might burn down, and we could lose what precious little we had; but I outgrew that.
But life gets in the way of that innocent happy-go-lucky outlook, and people easily become jaded. I did. I began to despise dealing with the general public on occasions where I had to be on the front lines, dealing with upset people over the most irrational things. And then, you learn that the louder you yell the more you'll get done for you. As a result of that, I developed a steel bubble around me. I would get what I wanted and screw anyone who got in my way. I was hard and unfeeling. And I wasn't happy. My life wasn't what I had signed up for...
How many times have you heard, "ignorance is bliss"? The people who I decided to be seemingly happy were, in my opinion, lacking the outlook of "real-life". I secretly wished that they would experience some shit in their life to be brought down from their high-horses and see this wretched world for what it was. (Ever heard of the other saying, "misery loves company"?). I'm a complete asshole, I know. I'm your run of the mill glass-is-half-empty person and I never really was like that. I just couldn't be bothered to always see the glass as half full. Some days it needed a re-fill- badly! I felt like a realist.
So after I went through a marriage that failed (that I failed miserably at) and a 10 year relationship where I was never happy, my girlfriend and I took a trip to Mexico. It was my first trip anywhere out of the US and my first time at an all inclusive, and my first time in a warm ocean. I looked out to the sea one night, watching the fireworks go off and the lights of the city twinkling in the distance and the moon over the water and waves crashing at my feet. For a moment I felt small, tiny, less than a grain of sand floating through the universe; this vast, vast world and an even larger, almost unfathomable universe...what makes my issues so big? Why do I need to carry this unhappiness around? I am no one of significance. Why does the weight of the world depend on me? A tear escaped down my cheek and before I knew it, I was sobbing, hard. I felt foolish for crying so openly... and then I decided, no, let the tears come. And as I cried, I felt the poisons I had been carrying for so many years ooze away from me. The weird thing was that I probably sat beside the ocean for hours before I came to my senses. I sighed with relief, brushed the sand from my ass and had a weird feeling. It was happiness. It was light, airy, and it was mine, so it was untouchable.
It was there that I learned no "one" can make someone happy. No "thing" is responsible for someone's happiness. And it's utterly heartbreaking to look at someone who has never known happiness. The pain on their face shows through deep lines of worry, anger, fear and sadness. Life is too short! Embrace it! Know that the world's issues aren't on your own shoulders. Forgive someone. Forgive yourself, maybe. Stop holding on to the negative. And do it because you deserve it. Because you really, really do.
