Remember being five years old, fascinated and utterly in awe of your surroundings, all the time?
Let’s go back.
If you were like me, you were probably always at some park, practicing your monkey bar tricks. But then – what happened when you spotted the perfect dandelion?
No, not the pretty yellow ones your parents scolded you not to pick up because it was in fact a weed and not a flower and somehow always covered in ants.
The white one – the perfect puff on a lone, strikingly tall, stem.
And you saw that dandelion and immediately recognized the whimsical, magical, potential encapsulated in this tantalizing thing, the thing you were supposed to leave on the roadside?
What was your your wish?
What did you want more than anything in the entire world, in that single moment?
Flash forward (cue movie scene, catchy song, golden hour countryside).
Do you remember that wish? Probably not. But never mind.
Let me ask a different question:
What do you wish for now?
Maybe you wish to replay the movie of your life thus far because, believe it or not, in this moment, you understand why all that time passes in the span of a song.
Maybe you wish for world peace, understanding, a reliable food supply, an epiphany, an answer to your prayers.
Maybe you’re still whimsical and wish to fall happily and madly in love, to dance through the fields under the shining stars, surrounded by the blinking fireflies (I know I do).
Maybe, just maybe, you’ll wish to be cognizant, appreciative, and utterly in awe of the change you’ll undergo so that the next time you find the perfect dandelion puff, you’ll look back and be amazed at all you’ve overcome.
As you know by now, I started On Happiness for a lot of reasons. But at the end of the day, I think I was trying to save, catalog, and explore a side of myself I didn’t know existed. In doing so, I uncovered so. many. thoughts. I changed my opinion. I struggled a bit. I grew some more.
In the early stages of writing – even though I was so excited to write – I found it to be the hardest thing in the world. I wanted my words to be perfect. But even though I believe there is a perfect word for every scenario, I had to face the alternate realization that the words will never be perfect. Inevitably, I will go back, or someone with a different perspective will read this, and we will both think, “How in the world could I (she) have written this?”
And that’s okay. I will not be the same person when I finish this book. Maybe you won’t either (maybe no one will actually ever read this, who knows). But I think that’s the point: you should always be seeking for the thing, the experience, the meaning, the unknown that helps you continually redefine and better you, no matter who is watching.
So go ahead:
Wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
Test out the day.
Feel those feelings.
Relentlessly chase meaning.
And buckle up, friends. This will be quite journey.
And if you need me in the process, I’ll be right here to listen, I promise.
ON HAPPINESS 