PART 2 OF IT'S TIME TO BE HAPPY
The truth is…to decide it’s time to be happy and then to
actually BE happy isn’t a matter of flipping a switch. I had to think first and
I don’t mean just making a quick list of the obvious but a deep, introspective sorting
of possibilities and dreams that have been laying there in wait. Even though I have dabbled with those dreams
over the years, I realize I will never be really happy until I have them up and
running. Since I am a firm believer in
the statement (since I heard it a little over a week ago) that a “goal is a
dream with a deadline” I realize that
finding this kind of happy is going to require a little strategy and GASP…some
work!
And yet it occurs to me that those dreams I’ve tagged as the
ones that will enhance my happiness are feeling quite comfortable right where
they are thank you very much. They are safely tucked away as a dream rather than
a reality.
Perhaps it’s hard to bring them fully out because there is
always the chance of failure, or might require working extra hard or require taking
risks – or require that I need to be brave.
Can I do that? I’m kind of in a
comfortable pattern right now. But there’s
that happiness issue. No one else can
make me happy. Not the inner happiness
that comes with the satisfaction of fulfilling a dream.
When I was 6 my Mother asked, “What do you want to be when
you grow up?” And without a moment’s hesitation I told her in one word and she
responded “Oh good, because you can be whatever you want to be!” “How very wonderful” I
thought!
But I let the more
important things in life get in the way, I’m not saying that was a bad thing,
it was a happy life spent with the people I love. And even though I have
accomplished many things in my long life I have not ever become that one
thing. Perhaps it’s finally time for me to grow up in answer to my Mother’s
question those many years ago. I want to feel that I can truly say that I am
that! Feeling satisfied that I am! I have dabbled in it over the years, I have
even studied it but to be accomplished and use that as a title….no. I have been fortunate to have family and
friends and even some teachers give me some much appreciated praise but alas I’m
somewhat like this peacock….
I need to believe in myself although I only see my faults! It’s so much easier to believe
in someone else!
But if I’ve learned nothing else since Dale died it’s how to be
brave. How to persevere. How to keep pedaling.
The gymnastic gold medalist didn’t just have fun doing flips
on the trampoline and then hop up on the balance beam in Rio and win the
gold. It took strategic planning and
instruction and practice and work, work, work.
So I’m ready to pull out the full-fledged dream, dust off
the cobwebs and make it happen. By
setting a long term goal date and then set up all of the steps that it will
take to get there and then while I have no delusions of grandeur like going for
the gold ~ I can certainly go for the Goal.
I understand that Laura Ingalls Wilder didn’t accomplish her
own dream of writing the Little House on
the Prairie books until she was well into her 60’s. So perhaps there is hope for me with my
dream. I just need to make it happen without getting in my own way by talking myself into feeling comfortable with it just being a dream or fall prey to all of the "what ifs" and make this adage my mantra:
If you want what you’ve never had…
you have to do
what you’ve never done.
And then I will be able to say:
Now that's a happy thought!
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