What does Happiness Look like for You?

When are we going to get away from the idea that bad things only happen to bad people? What if bad things happen to you, simply because things happen? I am indeed one of those people who believe in karma but more than anything, I believe in life. Before I go any further, I should warn you that I am a God fearing woman and in everything I do, I put my beliefs in him first. Understandably, a lot of my beliefs contradict each other but I have come to the realization that everything in life does not always have to make sense to me. Believing that bad things only happen to you because you’re a bad person or because Karma has you on its list is the same thing as believing that everything you believe in, in this life has to make sense to you. It is a form of control. It is a way of thinking that if I put this input in, then I know what outcome I will get. However the reality of life is that things happen and truly, we have no control over anything besides what we put into this life and how we react to its outcomes.

I used to always wonder why certain things happen to me and then after a while, I accepted that these things happen to me because of certain mistakes I have made in my life. If I choose to believe in God, and the idea that because Eve ate that apple then neither way of my previous thinking is a healthy lifestyle for me. I am forced to believe that we live in a fallen world and due to that, I am no more special than the next person. Things happen to me, simply because they happen. So instead of having a why me reaction, I am able to jump into the thought process of what am I going to do about it?

Once I grasped on to this, I was able to look back at my life from a new perspective. It doesn’t mean that I put the idea of karma to the side; it means that I stopped relying on certain outcomes. I am now able to rely on hard work and a can-do attitude that if I keep trying and praying, hopefully I will get what I want out of this life. It's easy to think this way until you work extremely hard on something and still end up with the short end of the stick. That is where faith comes in. Faith that the journey you are taking is the right one and faith that it will all work out exactly the way that it is supposed to.

This is just one of the many lessons that I have learned in my twenty fives years of being on this earth but I feel as though it may be the foundation of how I was able to turn my life around. Because having that “why me” mentality allowed me to not only be a victim to my own mistakes but become a victim to things that ultimately, I have no control over. If you choose to become a victim to things that you cannot even change, how do you move forward? Lets say you spend a week applying to jobs and then the next week you go on five interviews but end up with zero job offers. Do you start overthinking? Do you become afraid that this is how it is going to be forever? Do you give up and sulk, thinking what have I done to deserve this? You are down on your luck and the only thing you feel like you need right now is a job. You are doing everything that you can and feel like you may be getting nowhere at all. Why is this happening to me? My rent is due next week and I have no way to get it paid. I am going to have nowhere to live. Now all you do is focus on your problems because you feel as though you have no solutions.. That’s where your faith has to kick in. In that moment, you have the choice to believe that you are indeed doing everything you can and that is all that you can continue to do. It’s not about whether or not you’re jobless because you quit your last job for bull shit reasons. It’s not about the fact that you are broke because you splurged on a vacation months ago and then ate out every week since you have been home. It’s not about that because you can’t go back. You can’t get that money back, you can’t unquit, you can’t undo. It’s not about why it happened to you because it happened. So… what are you going to do about it?

I am at a point in my life where I feel as though I may be at a crossroads; I will either get it together and strive for what I want or… I won’t. The problem is that I am not really sure what it is that I want. A year or two ago, if someone were to ask me… what do I want to be or what do I want for myself, I would have said happiness. Happiness is what I want and yes, that is still true; but over time I learned that happiness is something that comes and goes. So if all I am trying to achieve is happiness then I am doing nothing more than chasing a butterfly. Because what is happiness to me anyway? I think that when people say that what they want is happiness, no one truly digs deeper to figure out what that means for them. It has to be more than just a fleeting emotion that you want for this life. For some people, happiness is success and to others it is having a big family in the country with a dog named Otis. Regardless, it looks different for everyone. So… what is happiness to me? It is a full life. Full of ups and downs and memories with those that I love. Most importantly, happiness to me is being able to leave a legacy behind.

The scariest thing about life for me is the unknown. What if I do everything right and then still end up with nothing? OR what if I make a mistake that throws my entire life off track? What the hell do I do then? Am I just supposed to have faith in the idea that everything happens for a reason? … Well… yes. It is all a part of a bigger picture that sometimes we can’t see because we are too busy focusing on one little detail of it. Imagine that you have an art project due for class, half way through, you get tired and accidentally spill paint all over the middle of the painting. You have three choices, you can give up and say fuck it; you could throw it away and start over OR you can find a way to make that spilled paint a part of your project. I think that that is what life is all about. Learning to make every part of it count and accept that a loss or fail does not really mean that you lost or failed. So I want to take my losses, my wins and all of the lessons that I have learned from them and share them with you.

Everytime that I would I would try to start writing this book… I would feel stuck. Where do I start? What do I include? And most important, why me? Why should I be the one to share my story? How am I any more special than the next person? Well the truth is that

I think that is the first step to getting past this crossroads that it feels like i have been stuck at for a while. My assumptions are that you reach the crossroads whenever you come to a point in your life where you wonder… “what is it that I want?” and you take the first step whenever you choose to figure out. Of course we all want success, love and happiness but… what does that look like for you?

Not sure what it looks like for you, but this is what it looks like for me. I hope that you read until the end and that whenever you do finish, it helps you as much as it has helped me.

Once Again, all tips are appreciated. Thank you for reading and remember that all advice submissions and tarot request can be sent to my email! [email protected]