No one ever told me “When you grow up you are going to be happy.” No one ever said “When you grow up you are going to have a good life.”

Maybe they should have told me that, but they didn’t.

Even if they had told me that, why do I always think that that’s what I’m supposed to be? Happy and having a good life?

Happiness for me might be misery to someone else. Happiness is and it isn’t.

You do not have to be happy.

It reminds me of the first lines of this poem:

Wild Geese ~ Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

In other words, we do not have to struggle, fuss, fight. We don’t need to punish ourselves for not being what we thought we should be.

Sometimes things come up and I think – I’m not happy with this. Then I think – So what? I’ll be happy again sometime. I can work to change it or not.  Be unhappy. Be happy.  Sometimes the pause of unhappiness brings happiness.  It’s the pause that counts.  It’s the pause that gives me the courage to decide what’s next.

Wherever you are, you are. Why fight it?

Happy.

Go!