This morning I got to thinking about the phrase money can’t buy happiness. I mean, I agree. But even further than that, what is happiness? Does the meaning for each person change? It seems like many of us are searching for answers. I’m not saying I know everything, but I feel as though I’ve been able to at least begin to define happiness for me. The interesting part is I’ve had to acknowledge my role in my own suffering. That my unhappiness was more or less always caused by me. During the beginning of my healing process I identified peace as one of the feelings that was attributed to long term happiness for me. I needed to find peace. In all aspects of my life. Within, surrounding me. In my past, in my present. With myself, with everyone and everything that I encountered. Letting nothing disturb your peace is difficult, but ultimately turns into long term happiness when put into practice.
More recently, I realized that one of the other things I needed in my life was freedom. More freedom. Freedom financially, sure. But that’s where the money comes in. I never put two and two together before. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy freedom. Financial freedom is something to strive for. It is something that can allow you more peace in your life thats for sure. But that is just one slice of freedom. There is freedom to think, believe, feel, move, be who you are. Fully and unapologetically. Without worry of acceptance from the world. Now, this may seem easy on the surface, but I feel it involves resolving the need for external validation. To start doing things just for you, not for recognition, but because you like to do them. To explore your own self, to become your own best friend. To have full self-acceptance for who you are. As normal as that may be, or as weird as they come. For some, the hardest part may be letting go of control of the outcome. Looking to the future, asking what will happen if you stop striving to be the best. What would happen if you stopped trying to constantly take care of everyone else. Or stopped curating the image of yourself. If you just relaxed. Found joy in solace. Found peace with doing things with only yourself. Allowed people to be removed from your life, trusting that you’ll be where you need to be when it’s time. Letting life be easy. That’s freedom to me. It sounds easy, but it’s a process to let go. To fall into the unknown. The freedom of losing control. The freedom of going with the flow.
So peace and freedom, but there is one more thing that is needed to be fulfilled. That’s love. I contemplated the idea of love for a very long time last summer. I wrote a lot about it, thought a lot about it. What I found is that the idea of love that I had was so constricted. There were so many rules made up to go with it. Well I can only show love romantically, but not to this person, not if they’re married (obviously). I can only show love until they don’t show me love I guess, then would I change it up? Retract my love at that point? I suppose that makes sense. But after thinking about this and contemplating all these restrictions I decided against the rule book of love I had been using. I decided that love should be all consuming. I decided that I was love, that I would always act with love, that I would be love no matter what. First, in order to do this, I needed to learn how to love myself. This process took months in itself. The point is love doesn’t have to have rules, or only be given at certain points. You can just be love, always. Trust me, it feels pretty good.
Peace, love, freedom. Very simple ideas. Complicated by our brains, by our experiences. The good news is we are able to change. We are able to make things simple again. Peace, love, freedom. My recipe for happiness.
The Girl Without A Face 