Living Happiness

When  I woke up this morning, I had this post all planned out in my head: peppy little title, aptly chosen opening quote, hand-picked personal anecdotes, and all my key points lined up in a little row.  Ta-Da!  This was going to be simple.

But, as I sat down and put fingers to keyboard, I realized that what I was going to write about was both of these things:

A.  a load of hooey

B.  already beaten to death by all of the other blogs out there

For you see, I was going to write about failure.  Success and failure, actually, and all of the great and marvelous things that can be said about it (and have been … to the death), which is Reason Number One why this post is not going to take that tack after all.

Reason Number Two: As I started writing my list of “failures” to share with you, I couldn’t believe the kind of silliness I was writing down.  “Seriously?” my Inner Voice piped up, “You’re putting down your chipped toenail polish as a failure?  God, if that’s all it takes then everybody in the world might as well curl up and die.  Why don’t you put ‘gray roots, need dye job’ on the list, too, just for posterity,” as she contemptuously snorted.

I looked at my list and she was right: it was utterly ridiculous the kinds of things I was setting down there as failures.  Imperfections, maybe, but failures?  Not a chance.

And that’s when my Inner Voice, having sufficiently calmed herself into some modicum of decorum (she had been laughing loud enough to beat the band), chimed in again: “You’re confusing imperfection with failure.  But if imperfection and failure were the same, we would have all had to hang it up a long time ago.  Lighten up already!”

Damn it.  She was right again.  But I was glad she was, because it was no fun sitting and feeling like the world’s biggest loser … and all because I was 1) trying to take myself too seriously and 2) trying to be perfect instead of just being me.

How many of us do this, though?  And often?

We read our feel-good magazines, we devour the articles in wellness and personal-development blogs, and then we measure our successes against the standard set before us only to come up short.

We don’t have time to meditate every day, we can’t afford to eat all organic all the time, we fight with our spouse or children or boss or best friend, we carry on the business of living all day long and hope that there’s time for us at the end … only to find, all too often, that there’s not.

We know what we “should” do.  We know what the happy perfect life looks like.  Why can’t we attain it?

Because we’re not perfect, and we’re not asked to be.  We’re simply asked to show up today and be.  Really.

Be.

There’s only one us, and we’re not perfect but we’re here.  And there’s a reason for it.  And we’re going to mess up and make mistakes and have unpainted toenails and dust bunnies in our houses and piles of dishes in our sink and all kinds of things still hanging out on our To-Do list that we never seem to get to, but that doesn’t make us failures.

Today, I would like to ask you give you permission to take yourself off the hook.  Nobody thinks you need to be perfect but you.

And I would like to leave you with these two reflections:

Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. ~Ieyasu Tokugawa

Where there is perfection there is no story to tell. ~Ben Okri

Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

How do you welcome your imperfections?

How do you deal with perceived failures?

Namaste,

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It has been almost one year since G and I packed up our little flat and moved into our current home … and almost one year since I boarded a ferry and then (three) planes that would take me across an ocean and back to the States for the first time in three years. To say last summer was difficult is an understatement.

In this year, G and I have experienced some big changes, most noticeably in the change in our relationship from fiancé and fiancée to husband and wife. We have made a new home, made new friends, learned new languages (me), found new jobs. All for our good, all for the better, not always easy.

As with any journey in which there are hardships to be endured, all of us have the chance to become stronger or the chance to fall and give up. If we choose to become stronger, the Universe will see to it that these hardships become our lessons.

Here are some just a few of the lessons I’ve learned this past year.

1. Sometimes you can go home again.
My biggest fear in returning to the States was that I wouldn’t be able to return home, but this turned out not to be true. Though it took me a while to find my way back to my home, when I finally did it was the best five weeks of my summer. When you go somewhere that love is unconditional, it doesn’t matter how much externals change, you will always be able to be you … and you will always be loved. To me, that is the very definition of home.

2. The heart may have more than one home.
It may have two … or three. Just as my heart rejoiced when it found its way back to my parents’ house, it also rejoiced when it found itself on Greek soil again. Words cannot describe to you the joy I felt on that first cab ride from Venizelos airport back into central Athens. My heart caught in my throat as I saw the Parthenon on the hill, my soul quieted down and sighed a big “aaaaah.” If I could have hugged the whole of Athens in one embrace I would have done it. And then there was my return to my love, G. I will never forget the morning, 5:30 a.m., just off the ferry, standing at the taxi rank in the purple dawn light, waiting for my first glimpse of him. And when I saw him … ? That day, my first day home, was truly one of the best days of my life.

3. It’s not always all about you.
There is a tendency in our modern, globalized world to focus on the individual, on independence, self-reliance, autonomy, ourselves. But in doing so we can sometimes forget that, even so, we still live in relation every day to ourselves and the world around us. We are not the only ones who are affected by events and circumstances. We are not the only ones who deserve a fair break or our piece of the pie. Sometimes the best thing we can do is get out of the way and let “it” be about someone else for a change. Let them have the break. Let them have the pie. The lessons of last summer taught me this, above all.

4. Sometimes not asking for forgiveness is the only thing that’s holding you back from receiving it. ASK.
One of the things I learned when I finally “stepped out of the way” is that I had inadvertently caused a lot of hurt and anguish in recent months to those around me, too caught up in myself to see it. So when I finally did “see” it, I was heartbroken and wanted to make things right. What I discovered is that most people quickly and gladly forgive. But I may not have received this gift had I not asked. This gift was the gift of grace.

5. Where there is no road, you have the opportunity to make one.
As a stranger in a strange land, the course you take is not always one set out for you. There are detours and byways and full-out turnabouts you have to endure before you get where you’re going. This is nowhere more apparent than in one’s job. This year I repeatedly went down one certain vocational road only to always find myself at a dead end. And then one day I realized, “Hey, there’s a destination up there I want to get to … and this way isn’t working.” I started “building a new road,” and now there is a way where once there was none.

6. Simple and easy are not the same.
If they were, far more of us would be happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise. But the roads to these places, though perhaps simple, are not easy. We are allowed to choose every day which path we want to take: the path of ease … or the path of simplicity.

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