A good question, right? And I bet most of us don’t think that’s what we are doing.
We want ‘happiness’ but we want it to be like a magic unicorn that just ‘happens’ to us.
Many of us put off happiness because it is simply easier.
Working on becoming happier requires working on ourselves and that can be really scary. So naturally we avoid this and just plug away at our lives.
Every day, every year we keep doing relatively the same thing and then we wonder why we still feel the way we do. That rinse and repeat cycle that is not a catalyst for happiness landing in our laps.
We shake it up a bit in the attempt to find some more happy. We book a 3 week trip to Italy. We buy a new car. Go on a shopping trip. Change our job.
These attempts at becoming happier are so fleeting. The positive emotions are temporary. But after you get back from your trip or drive that car off the lot – there you are still you, in this bubble of your life.
I think part of being unhappy comes from us being stuck in a rut. A mental stagnation of sorts. Telling ourselves the same thing over and over. We hang onto our past stories. We let them define us. They are comfortable, they give us reasons and excuses.
It’s because my childhood was awful, that’s why. It’s because we were poor, that’s why. It’s because my husband cheated on me, that’s why. It’s because I’m depressed, that’s why. It’s because I have never had a break my entire life, that’s why.
Believing this story we tell ourselves so hard that we convince ourselves it can only be this way. That story is why we aren’t happy and can’t find happiness.
What if we challenged ourselves to rewrite our story? Write a new story of who we are. And live from this new story?
What if our new story burned down all the drama, excuses, old beliefs that consume our day to day lives and define who we are.
Give yourself grace but also challenge who you are.
What bubble have we created around ourselves that we can’t see out of? What story is surrounding you so hard that you can’t imagine not believing that it is the source of your life’s trajectory?
We put off happiness. We make that decision unconsciously. We coast through life not challenging these old beliefs.
It’s time to put the brakes on and take stock of where we are right now. Determine what is in this bubble of ours and how can we pop it.
And what if we popped that bubble? How scary would that be?
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