Finding Peace

We all just want to be happy. Happiness is sold to us, we are shown through ads, social media, TV, books, movies, all of it, we're told we need to keep chasing happiness. There's one more thing we need. One more eyeshadow pallet to make us beautiful, and if we're beautiful, we can be happy. If we're with the right person, we'll be happy. If we go to the right places, and see all the right things, we'll be happy. I have spent my entire life, chasing happiness. It's the only thing I ever want. Money comes and goes, friends come and go, I just fucking wanted to be happy.

My ex husband told me when I told him I wanted a divorce because I was unhappy with our relationship and didn't see myself EVER finding happiness in it, that happiness is a fickle thing and that I'll never find it. Well he was half right. It is fickle as fuck. I have found it, I have lost it, I've chased it, everything. But happiness is, in fact, fickle. It finally dawned on me that I've been chasing the wrong thing. Not that happiness is wrong, but it's so easy to lose it. Think about it, happiness is like that feeling you get to the end of a race, (I assume, I've never actually ran a race) when you've finished! You achieved your goal! All your hard work and training paid off and you did it! You spent months of training, for those few seconds of bliss. A. Few. Seconds. Was it worth it? All that training, for a moment?

What I never tried to find? Peace.

Don't get me wrong, happiness is amazing and I will never stop chasing it. But I've finally learned me lesson. You can choose to be happy. It's not fucking easy AT ALL! But you can choose to find happiness in a shitty situation. Happiness is a choice. But peace, it can be found. We can find peace. We don't have to chase it. Peace is within all of us. We are all capable of finding peace. While we're training for that race and that moment of fucking bliss at the end, we can find peace. We can be at peace with the fact that we are bettering ourselves. We can find peace that we are working towards a goal. A goal of happiness.

I wish I knew how to find it. I wish I had the answers, but I don't. Peace and happiness look different for everyone. I'm still trying to learn for myself how to find peace. We can pray to a god, the universe, whatever or whoever we want. We can meditate, we can cuddle our animals, or loved ones. We can find it in small moments. Peace is just knowing that the world is out of our control but we can accept it for what it is. We can fight when we need to, but we can choose to be at peace with ourselves that we're fighting for the right thing and with the right motive. Peace is so much bigger than ourselves. We may never achieve world peace but we can achieve peace with the world.

I will never stop chasing happiness, but I will stop basing my whole existence off that never ending chase. I will find peace with my choice to chase happiness, I will find peace with the struggle because it's making me a better person. I will find what I'm looking for.

Happiness has to be chased, but peace can be found. In the end it will all be worth it. Happiness is the destination, but peace is the journey.