We do not have to wait to find happiness somewhere in the distance sometime in the future. Our old ideas about the paths to joy have evolved; we can choose happiness now.
Do you feel stuck? Do you feel like you’re living in limbo? Do you think your destiny is to keep doing the same things repeatedly – tweaking your life as best you can to survive it? Are you at the mercy of someone else? Is your money controlling you? Are the systems you find yourself in trapping you in a life you didn’t sign up for? Do you feel sorry for yourself, unloved and alone?
There is a path out of limbo, but it’s hard to find and often hard to stay on once you find it, as it requires the evolution of your beliefs about the path to happiness.
The well-worn paths we can see in front of us are the ones we naturally follow and find ourselves on. The paths the world shows us are so well-trodden and easy to follow that we need to develop our minds and eyes to see the uncommon paths that will lead us to a better place.
It can be hard to head off on a path that no one else is taking, and it often seems like we are hand-delivered right to the start of those well-worn paths. What paths does the world hold out to us?
- To wait for someone to rescue us.
- To “fix” our lives until they are tolerable.
- To silently suffer until we do something dramatic to propel us out of limbo.
If you choose path one, waiting for someone to come to the rescue, you will likely wait a long time because more people need to be rescued than rescuers. Path one has us grab onto anyone who provides us with a glimmer of what is missing from our lives. Whether it is someone who is “nice,” “fun,” or “exciting” or provides us with a different experience from the limbo we find ourselves in. While doing something different can give us a mental boost for a time, eventually, we find ourselves back in limbo, as stuck as we ever were, but now we have one more person or pursuit to deal with. We have compounded our unhappiness because we begin to notice that even with this new person or a new hobby, we are still, deep down, unhappy.
Then there is path two: fixing what is wrong in our lives or a life lived in reaction. While path two relates to what will get you out of limbo, there is a fundamental flaw: you are often tweaking things to live a life someone else has suggested is the right way to live. Path two is the most soul-destroying and dangerous way to live. While path one can invite outside danger into your life, path two creates a situation where you take yourself down into a hole that can be difficult or impossible to climb.
In path two, you usually don’t have the resources or personality to live that imagined perfect life, but that doesn’t stop you from trying. You work hard to achieve the life reflected in the world around you (especially on social media) or try to live according to what your family has told you is the right way to live. You have a vision of what a happy life looks like, and off you head in that direction, “fixing” your circumstances and yourself to get there. You become the “people pleaser” and the “master of control,” all rolled into one. But it is impossible to please others, and you cannot control the world – chaos reigns. Path two is the path many of us take – and many of us persist for years and years, working hard to get to happiness and achieving as we go. But the cruel irony of path two is when you get to your desired destination (losing pieces of yourself along the way), you realize you are not happy. With this realization that your life has been a struggle for seemingly naught, you fall into anger or depression and often despair. Path two leads to path three.
People crash their way onto the third, often travelled path, from their combined anger and depression from having travelled path two. Path three begins by doing something dramatic. Doing something dramatic does propel us out of limbo, but we have little control over what happens next. Path three is like setting off a bomb, which, while it creates change, may lead to cleaning up the debris and fallout for years to come, making it impossible to find happiness.
Finding our path to happiness
Discovering our path to happiness requires personal evolution. If you feel stuck, it may be because you have followed the well-worn path that the world has pointed out. It may take time to recognize that you are following the wrong path, especially if everyone else is continuing along that path. Once you gain awareness that you are lost, stand still, evaluate your surroundings, and consider your resources before moving forward. Instead of rashly choosing any direction to escape being lost, stop and get your bearings.
With awareness, you can begin again on your journey, slowly and steadily and savouring each step. Begin enjoying the journey, reminding yourself to look for your path, one that may not look like anyone else’s. When uncertain about the next steps, pause again to get your bearings instead of succumbing to panic and remind yourself of who you are, what you dream of and what you carry with you before heading off again. You’ll gradually identify paths that align with you. Along the way, you will encounter fellow travellers with similar aspirations. Whether you continue independently or join others on the same path, you’ll begin to appreciate the fulfillment of navigating a journey aligned with you. Cultivating gratitude for your ability to rescue yourself and navigate a fulfilling path becomes a transformative journey. Carry on, and one day, you will stop, not to find your bearings, but to notice that you have finally found happiness – it is in you, and you carry it with you. Your thoughts have evolved, and you understand that happiness is not the destination – it is with you, every step along the path you take.
