There comes a time.....

There comes a time, hopefully in everybody's life, when you realize that what you have been doing, this living to please others is never going to get you what you really want and need, that it will never fulfill you. That time has come in my life. It didn't come suddenly, it has been creeping up on me for some time now. The realization that this fear of not being enough in others' eyes that I have lived with for what seems to be for most of my life never has and never will bring me happiness. I cannot possibly please anybody because I have no real idea of what their expectations are and when expectations are not met people will be disappointed.

I want to live every second of my life. I want to feel alive every second of my life. I want to walk around grinning like my life is the best ever every second of my life. I want to experience every second of my life fully and I want to do it in a state of happiness.

Now think about that one for a moment. I want to experience every second of my life fully. Now there's a scary thought because the moment you think it is followed by something like the questions "What if something bad happens to me? How could I possibly want to experience that fully?" Our fear of something bad happening to us is so deeply conditioned in most of us that we never risk changing what we do in fear of bringing ire from some invisible force upon us. We think it will somehow jinx us, bring bad upon us, but the truth is we make ourselves suffer because we continue to live in fear. We live in fear and we are even afraid to care and of our own emotions so we ridicule anyone who shows emotion and we think anyone who is happy is also insane because what is there to be happy about? Life is tough, right? Life is out to get you!

We go to work and do our best to play the politics and please our boss' ego because without that we know we won't get a pay rise next year. If we open up and tell people what we really feel is right and stand up for ourselves we know we will become a target and even lose our jobs. In the meantime though we are so unhappy and stressed we make ourselves ill and our loved ones are suffering as a result. What kind of a life is that?

So in light of this I have decided that I will make a conscious decision to be happy every moment of my life. I will wake up in the morning and decide to be happy. Every time I catch myself not being happy I will again make the decision to be happy and see what that does for me. It can't be any worse than what I've had so far!