Believe it or not, I'm scared of being happy. It's a belief that without the pain or discomfort I will loose my drive to achieve the things that I want to. When I type this out, it sounds fucking insane. Yet it is true. It's how I feel inside. Till about couple of weeks ago for the past couple of months I have been waking up with this ache inside. At first I thought it was the pain of where I was and how far away I am to where I want to be. The dread of how much there is to do and how much further I need to go was just eating me up. To the point my first thought when I woke up would be, "Fuck! I'm still here (as in alive)." I'm not suicidal but I was hoping some natural cause would take over and I wouldn't have to see another morning. A small something has changed since then. Yet all the things I need to do and the distance from my goal is the same. It's a little bit closer but nothing major has changed, externally.
I've come to understand myself a lot better in the last couple of years. And I know as soon as I am about get to a milestone, I'll have moved the goalpost to some fucking insane corner of the world. It's just who I am. I like this part of me. Truth be told I'm happiest when I'm in pursuit of a goal. So pain is inevitable, it'll be a constant companion. What I realized is that, the pain itself is manageable and I can handle it. What's not is the mind going bat shit crazy and trying to make sense of how things are going to play out. This is not a flaw, this is the same reason why I'm decent at programming. Yet, when it comes to something as complex as life, it is insanity to make sense of how things will turn out. Yet that is what I do. So the pain itself is more than manageable, it's all the arrows that I shoot at myself after.
In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.
It's a simple shift in being. Yet it makes all the difference to my existence. The meditating monks were onto something. I enjoy programming too much to want to meditate in cave, maybe when I'm older. As of now, I just want to do more of everything I'm doing right now. It also helped that I did the meditation course by Sam Harris last year, they have been the most compounding lessons ever.
When in pain, feel pain
It's as fucking simple as that.
Last week I was facing an old demon of mine. One I hadn't come across in a year or so. I decided to face it. I couldn't sleep the whole night and needed some distractions now and again but I stuck with it. By the morning I was worn out but I had managed to stay with the pain for the longest time I ever had. The thoughts did take over a few times but I did manage to return to the pain. It took a few more days for it to go through me but it did eventually. It revealed more about myself in a week than what I've come to learn in a year. It's easy to write about after the fact.
What does all of this have to with happiness?
During the last couple of weeks I realized, I'm doing all of this in the hopes to be happy or happier later. So I asked myself, "If I do what I do now with joy, will the outcome be better or worse?" The answer was it would be a lot fucking better. More importantly it'll make the journey a lot more enjoyable too. Sure it might take me a little bit longer but why delay living? I'll wish I was younger, had more time and if I had enjoyed the journey a little bit anyways. So why not just do it now? Also enjoy the sweet sweet wealth and riches at the end too. Honestly, what an awesome time of my life I am in right now. I'm stronger than I have ever been, I'm the youngest I'll ever be and I'm healthy as I'll ever be. Maybe that last part is not true. But who cares. These are the cards in my hands right now, so let's play.