Life is hard at times. There are decisions that have to be made that affect your life and the lives of others. There is drama at work, family feuds and sometimes we wake up in the morning and our jeans just won’t fit. Whether the trials of life seem large or small, a few consecutive days being confronted by these issues will add up and lead to a personal great depression that is bigger than any this country has ever seen.
The truth is, and this is a big pill to swallow, the reason you are unhappy is because, you want to be.
This may seem foolish as you say to yourself, “I am not a masochist. I don’t like pain.” But to be honest, any emotion that you experience for more than 60 seconds is a choice. Whichever emotion you are experiencing right now is a result of placing your attention on thoughts that fuel that particular emotion.
You’re focused on your losses. You’re focused on the negative events you’ve seen on the news. You’re focused on the horrible things people have said to you in the past. You’re wondering why you have yet to reach the place in life where you feel you deserve to be.
Life is supposed to be like THIS, you say. But the reality is, it doesn’t.
There was no contract that you signed upon your arrival on earth that stated that you will experience certain events at certain times and there would never be times of uncertainty. No one could ever script your life in this way because if they did, it wouldn’t be life, it would be a movie. Life is not a movie. Circumstances don’t arise, hit a crescendo and work themselves out within an 130 minute period.
It’s okay if it takes you more than 4 years to finish college. It’s perfectly fine if your first real relationship falls apart. It’s not abnormal to realize that your life hasn’t been mapped out by the age of 30. It’s okay not to know what will happen next.
You are unhappy because you want to control every circumstance of your life. You are unhappy because you keep thinking about those circumstances you can’t control and you have decided that since you can’t control those situations then life is bad.
You are the authority who decides what is good or bad. When you decide that life not meeting your expectations is a bad thing you are choosing to be unhappy. You can easily decide that everything is a good thing. It seems silly but it will bring a great deal of relief and wonder to your life as you encounter those surprise twists and turns.
It’s okay. You can start over from here. Shrug your shoulder at the uncertainties that you encounter and ask yourself, “I wonder what good this will bring.”
