We are conditioned to believe that there is only so much happiness we can have. Especially in these times, we find it harder and harder to look positively into the future. It's quite understandable, with all the blindness of our "leaders." But where does this actually come from? From a young age, we are pitted against each other in the race for superiority. This mindset still seeps into our daily interactions and is certainly a pillar of the me-centric media culture we have created.
We are taught that there are winners and losers. There are people who make it and people who don't, and you have to be someone who makes it. There are only so many positions, so many success stories, so many ways to create the life you want. You have to choose from the human catalog of physical success and fight for a lifestyle that exists in limited supply. We get used to the idea that happiness and success are things that someone else gives us - bosses give us jobs, lovers commit to "forever." No wonder we feel constantly out of control; we don't even know what makes us happy or how to achieve it because we assume someone else decides whether or not these things happen in our lives.
Wanting is one of the ugliest things you can do. It keeps your experience in a state of "not having." It keeps the good things at a distance. You get the thing you want most when you don't want it anymore. When you change your mindset and experience to the state of "already having," you naturally create and attract things that are consistent with your idea of yourself. Acceptance is the root of abundance. The things you really want rarely have to be thought up. When you put labels, words and ideas on them, you create an image of something that is purely and essentially you. We falter when our ideas don't evolve with our being, and we create what we want while still clinging to an old idea."
These are the ways you can get out of the life someone else has created for you and develop new ideas. There are ways to pay the rent. There's no way to make someone love you if they don't. The life you create for yourself moment by moment and with the people you desire is one job, one month's rent, one load of laundry, one sink full of dishes, and one electric bill after another. Adults don't do these things just to do them. These things mean freedom. They keep your own roof over your head. They reduce you to the single thought that nothing is more important than your peace of mind.
If you find yourself in an untenable situation, leave it if you must. There is no excuse for staying with people who don't love or accept you. There are ways to survive. There are second jobs, overtime, and rooms that friendly people rent or share. These things are reserved for the people who put their spiritual well-being above immediate comfort. They are reserved for the people who deserve them and who know they deserve them. You are not supposed to be happy, secure and stable all the time. If you were, it wouldn't be such a struggle. Overcoming the pain of being human is one thing and one thing only: allow yourself to be."
Surrendering to it doesn't mean giving up, it means being honest. It means being real and messy, beautiful and tortured, dark and nuanced and full of hope. It's what we want to be. The only thing we really want to overcome is the inability to be who we are, as we are. There is just as much value in negative space. Not every second of your life has to be filled with something productive. A full schedule does not equate to success. Living to work and not working to live does not bring quality of life. There is no division into "times when you do something that other people can value" and "times when you do nothing"; everything we do is important."
In sad moments, it can be good to be alone. Being with other people, appointments, ideas, and creative outpourings wouldn't be as profound and impactful if there weren't also moments of aloneness, nothingness, and spiritual drought. The context of things is as important as they are. The center of a work of art would not exist without the negative space that frames it. Unfortunately, nothing and no one can give you your happiness.
Fortunately, nothing and no one can take it away from you. You would dismiss this as the oldest trick in the book, but still.... we seek it even though we know better. We fight against our nature to grow and expand and enlighten and seek and create, instead of believing that it should just come to us. It's as if we're applying the terms "want" and "try" in completely the wrong direction.
Time is not linear as we perceive it. Everything happens all at once. You call into your experience what you need and what you are, and you are never without or with anything. You will never receive or lose anything, because you always were and always will be. This knowledge is the foundation upon which true magic is created.
People want to be with people who are interested in things that look different, who have stories and ideas that reflect and complement their own way of thinking. No one wants a person who gets angry when they think someone has implied that they are "fat." They want a person who says, "Fat isn't something you are, it's something you have, and even if that weren't the case.... Even if I were fat, who cares?" Love is not dictating how you look, act, and live a certain way. The universe whispers until it screams. Your body whispers until it screams. "Bad" feelings are not meant to be fought off. They are there to tell you that something is wrong.
If you listen to the voice of your gut, it will eventually turn into a big, loud external voice that demands attention from you. Learn to listen while it's still small. The greatest irony of life is that you have the most success when you do what feels right. Following our true happiness, our inner peace, is our only real responsibility. People who love what they do are always more successful than people who work hard or claim to be passionate about their work. There's an X-factor you can't mimic when you're doing something you're truly passionate about. You tap into an otherwise untouchable energy when you follow your passion for something. Your identity doesn't have to be coherent because people don't expect it to be; they just want an explanation when they ask, "What do you do?"
You don't have to live for your résumé, the summary we try to put together in our heads when we imagine others explaining you or judging who you are. It doesn't have to make sense. You can be great at a lot of things that don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. You may have a variety of jobs, each of which makes sense at the time you are doing it. You may be good at many things without lacking in others. You don't have to be a novel; you can be a book of stories. You don't have to merge your co-existing truths and dull your luster just so it makes sense to a narrow-minded person who wants you to fit into a narrow understanding of what they're comfortable with. You don't have to be just what other people are comfortable with.
Knowing the future doesn't make it true. It just compartmentalizes you. You're attached to your own idea because it's what you really wanted and because you're trying to make your vision a reality. The content of our attachment is unimportant compared to the desire to be right, to be in control, and to feel like we know what's best and that we're successful because we're living what we know is going to happen.
No one gets what they want without a lot of time, effort and learning. Things will go better than you could have chosen or planned for. However, in your ignorance, it will seem like everything is screwed. In the moments before you realize that something better than what you could have imagined is coming to pass, it will seem as if every plan you made and every hope you had has been completely disregarded by the higher power you may or may not believe in. Believe that you will get more than you think you deserve. You must become the kind of person who deserves the life you want - not just because you think you deserve it, but because you believe in it with every fiber of your being. This kind of self-confidence attracts what you want into your life like a magnet attracts steel shavings. As you work on yourself, you will find that the things you desire will come to you. When they do, don't take it for granted, but enjoy every moment and let it convince you that all those years of frustration were worth it because you are now exactly where you are supposed to be.