There are times when I can’t help but wonder how other people experience life. I might allow my mind to entertain fantasies about how other people live for days before I stop, and remind myself that it doesn’t matter how other people experience reality. Even though I know this, it doesn’t stop my obsessive brain from overthinking this topic.
We all live with different perceptions of reality; meaning, we see, experience, and interpret things differently from one another. It shouldn’t matter how other people live their lives compared to how I live my life. Its like comparing apples to oranges, or water to wine.
They have similarities but they are different. I know that getting wrapped up in other people’s lives is a waste of time. It makes sense on the surface, but scratch a little deeper and the concept is actually pretty hard to live by.
If it were easy to ignore how others lived their lives then people would never be comparing themselves to each other; judging, criticizing, and perching themselves upon their moral high grounds. Right? Think about it, are you free from these behaviors?
I would like to be free of judgement, and silly games of comparisons, but sadly I am not. I am going to let you in on a little secret of mine. I am obsessed with how happy I am compared to other people. I am a tad bit ashamed to admit that I am not as happy, or fulfilled as I would like to be. I am bummed out that I constantly wonder what is missing in my life. Distracted by asking, but never answering the question, “what is holding me back from true happiness?”.
True happiness. What is that? Can you define it for me? I have been struggling with the concept for quite some time now. There are a couple things I understand about happiness. Happiness is a state of mind, and happiness is not what you have.
I am happy. I never said I was unhappy. What I said was, I am striving toward true happiness. The type of happiness where I don’t feel suffocated by my circumstances. Anxious if I am not occupied. Or fearful that I will lose control. The type of happiness that is not constantly running away from darkness.
I know and understand these concepts of happiness, but that doesn’t mean I am applying them to my life 100% of the time. On occasion I sit at home and wonder, how other people get through life with a smile on their face? I imagine there is no way I am all alone on this one. No way am I the only weirdo sitting in their backyard wondering how other people navigate life.
I am obsessed with this concept of believing other people are happier than I am. I wonder if they are truly as happy as they appear? I wonder how many people are on medication to help with their mood? How many self medicate? How many are living the life they portray to the public?
I wonder, but at the same time I have been trained to think it does not matter. I have been trained to stay out of other people’s business, but no matter how hard I try to focus only on myself, I fail. I can’t stop thinking about my neighbor’s happiness, or lack there of. I feel, I should care, because I believe that the happiness of a single person is a reflection of our planet.
Regardless of how my obsession comes across, I don’t want to judge other people. I don’t want to criticize, or make anyone feel that they are not living life the “correct” way. I don’t believe there is a correct way to live. I just have a deep feeling in my heart that many humans are living life with a lost purpose, with a fabricated happiness.
Strong assumptions I know, but I accept that I am making assumptions based on my personal experience. I accept that I might be completely alone on this, and my feelings may only be fueled by a long history of personal depression. However, I also accept that there is a possibility that I am not wrong, and there are people out there that need to know they are not alone.
I am obsessed with true happiness. I am obsessed with my own happiness, the happiness of others, and the happiness of the world. There I have said it! I too am in the pursuit of happiness; but let me make this crystal clear, I am not pursuing a happiness based on anything of this physical world. My obsession with happiness is largely due to me gaining awareness, or as most call it, I am waking up.
We are all awakening, I am not special. The difference between me and some people is I have reached the point where I play here and there with knowing that I am waking up. Personally, I believe, the information that I pump into my head has given me the opportunity to feel the sensation of opening my eyes to a different reality.
Literally one day I woke up and said “I don’t get it”, to everything that I knew. Consumerism, materialism, the importance of money, the importance of a formal education, the media, anything labeled reality television, what a religion is, the different between ethnicities, rules in general, laws that control people, anyone having power, self imagine, egos, marriage, procreation, the concept of buying processed food, the age of the earth, that the earth is even the earth, what a family is, how people migrated and destroyed the world.
Everything. We don’t have time to talk about everything though. Just know that when I say everything, I literally (yes the correct usage of this word) mean everything. There is this rollercoaster of emotions when it comes to this realization. On the highs, nothing can stop me, nothing can shake me, or bother me. I am confident and joyous that I can see life for all its beauty and all its darkness, and still love that I have been given the chance to live in this moment in time.
On the lows, all I want to do is turn back. I want to remember the old me, I want to fall back asleep and turn my back on reality. I want to go back to the times where I didn’t know that all I am is a tiny piece in all of existence. A peg on the gear of time. A cell that belongs to the body of creation.
Sometimes I wish that I had no understanding of how interconnected we are with one other, with the earth, and with all of the cosmos. Sometimes I wish I could strengthen my ego and go back to when all I cared about was when I could upgrade to a new phone, or how the cleanliness of my home said something about who I was as a person.
A rollercoaster built on the everlasting rails of infinity. There is no up, no down, no backwards, no forwards, no sense time. No way for us to investigate, or research, or understand. No way to tell what is really happening, that is why I say maybe I am alone on this one, but I don’t think I am.
I don’t think I am the only person who feels unsettled, unfinished, and underwhelmed with what is being offered to us as the masses. That is why I am constantly wondering, who is happy out there? Where are you? Tell me what has you so happy these days?
Is it the constant wars and death of innocent people based on religion? Is it the obsession with spotlighting in our political game? The arguments over equality? The countries economic crisis? The propaganda we call the media? Is it the growing divide between the privileged and not? The racial tension that seems to want to take over?
Or is it just that in your eyes, your personal life just couldn’t be better?
You don’t work more than you should. You don’t find yourself skinny or fat. You don’t obsess over aging and wrinkles you can’t control. You have healthy relationships with your family and your friends. You never lie, you are a truth machine. You live inside of your means and have no credit card debt. You live to make yourself happy, not “stuff” happy, but happy with who you truly are. Not your character or a role you’re playing but the real you.
If you have a significant other you have a good relationship built on trust and friendship. Not just that you believe that your relationship is good, but that both of you feel that it is good. Not Facebook good. Not 10 selfies in good. Not highlight good, but really good.
You love yourself.
Not you love your life. Not you love your significant other, or your kids, or your job, or any of your other material possessions, but you love the essence of who you are.
Do you love yourself? During the entire rollercoaster. At the highest moments and the lowest times, do you truly love yourself? Do you accept your downsides and failures and still look in the mirror and love yourself? Do you recognize the growth inside of you every time you hit the bottom?
Awakening is a deeply personal experience, and is not the same for any one person. It can’t be measured, there is no comparisons in the game of life. We don’t know who goes home and cries themselves to sleep, or who is quiet in the corner but over joyed by everything. We just don’t know.
I am obsessed with this concept of happiness. I am obsessed with, how you are, because like I said I feel the happiness of one person is a reflection of the planet. The planet’s health and happiness. I don’t just mean the state of the soil, or deforestation, but the energy that vibrates into the atmosphere.
If you are not truly happy, if you are not fulfilling your soul’s purpose, if you are hiding, and struggling; believe me when I say you can hide it on your face, but not on your energy. Your energy speaks louder than words, and body language combined. You are sending out your energy to everyone you meet, to the world. You could’t stop even if you tried.
Think about that for a bit. What are you sending out into the world? Now magnify that by billions. Can you see why I am obsessed? We are reflections of each other. What do you want staring back at you in the mirror?
Honing Your Reality 