Sometimes we follow a path hoping it will take us where we want to go in life. We trudge along waiting for that life changing experience that will make us happy. We think if we get the job of our dreams that it will change or life for the better. If we make upper management and get that corner office that the world will be our oyster. That if we marry the person of our dreams and plan a life together that our mission in life will be complete and we will finally be happy.
These are all temporary situations that fate, time and destiny can steal away from us. In the downturn of the economy many jobs have become redundant, many upper managements positions have become outdated, and many times that perfect person is human and we discover years down the line that they have either become a stranger to us or they have evolved into someone we no longer recognize. You cannot base your bliss on aspects of your life that could dissolve before your very eyes.
Your home can be lost in a fire or natural disaster, you marriage could dissolve due to miscommunications or even bad life choices. All of these things can change and be gone like smoke on the wind. You bliss however cannot, it is not a physical state or material positions. You bliss is where you find happiness and how you get through tough times.
Many people find solace in religion, they follow a set list of rules that at some point they felt applied to their lives. As their lives change their faith in those in rules may become stronger or it may be threatened. I think that those who are able to cling to those beliefs without fear or doubt are blessed. They always have their religious affiliations to find solace in and hopefully they also find bliss in that life choice. As long as they aren't trying to penalize others for believing differently than they, do no harm no foul.
Finding your bliss also means respecting others enough to allow them the same freedoms you have found in your own life. It doesn't mean trying to convince others that you path is the only path or treating them as though they are incapable of making their own life choices. There is no harm in praying for others, or lighting candles or sending positive healing energy their direction as long as it doesn't interfere with their own free will. It means respecting others and treating them as you yourself would want to be treated, even if others are at that state in their development. It is a state of mind regarding what makes you happy and having the freedom to pursue those dreams and goals. Regardless of what others may think of those goals and dreams. It means finding out what works for you and applying that knowledge to your own personal life.
Sometimes finding your bliss can be complicated, sometimes it can be just out of your reach but in your gut you know it is there. Sometimes it comes in unusual ways or due to unforeseen circumstances. It doesn't happen because you wake up one morning and say I am going to be happy dammit. It comes because you open up your heart and your mind to the possibility of it. It happens when you least expect it and when you have dreamed of it for years. It is nothing and everything all rolled up in a ball of cotten candy and tied with a red velvet ribbon. It is what happens when you are busy living your life.
Sometimes your bliss may be standing right in front of you but if you are ready to accept it, it will remain a mystery to you. Many times I have passed by things that could have made me happy but due to the circumstance I was currently living I refused to acknowledge their presence. I was so busy keeping my eye on the long term goals I had in my minds eye that I was blind to things staring me right in the face. Finding your bliss means opening your eyes and finding happiness where ever it may be. It means being able to find joy in the little things in life and being able to welcome new experiences for a chance of growth and enlightenment.
Finding your bliss means that if given the chance to have a new experience you don't turn away and ignore it, you weigh the pros and cons in your life to see if it is something that might be a new life altering experience. It means even if you have never had an interest in something not taking a chance to see if perhaps there might be something there to in some way make your life a little bit better. Maybe not by the actual project but by the new friends you make along the way.
Many times I have attended a class I might not have had an interest in but went anyway, just to be able to say OK I tried that, wasn't my cup of tea but most of the people I met were amazing. They were following their own bliss and having new experiences by doing so. I am not saying that you have to run out and sign up for every low cost or free class out there. Pick and choose what things you would like to know more about or things that might prove to help you find your bliss. Be that cooking or wine making, or painting or whatever. I may have no skills in that particular area and I might truly suck at it, but if it makes me happy and makes my life better than it is time well spent. If it turns out to be something that brings me no happiness or in any way make my life better then I try to take a look around me at those in the class. We all have similar interest in one way or another. It might not be our passion but it might be a similar interest in our families, life goals, or even just saving money or living healthier. You just never know until you take the leap and try something different.
Will every path you take lead you to where you want to go? No, but every path you take, every mistake you make along the way will help you learn more about yourself until you know who you truly are inside and out. I like to remind my darling husband that had I not dated before we met I would not have firmly planted in my head what I will and will not accept in a relationship. All that time I spent dating those who didn't fit into my ideal helped me see first hand exactly what I wanted and in the process learned where my own boundaries lay. I do not regret the mistakes of my past because they helped me become the person I was meant to be.
There is only a waste of your energy and your time if you do not learn something from the experience. I like to believe that everything happens for a reason. That often times road blocks and speed bumps come up to test my determination to make my dreams a reality. That without them I wouldn't truly appreciate the end result when I get there nor would I recognize bliss when I am nose to nose with it.
Yes some rain does fall into my life on occasion, yes I do wake up some days and go really, another day this side of the dirt blanket, I don't wanna. I am not a happy person by nature, believe it or not. But every day I get up, face whatever the day is going to throw at me, try hard to find the happiness in the whole experience, not simply the moments and get one small step closer to the things I enjoy and I create the life I want one very small baby step at a time.
I have those days when nothing goes right. My coffee has grounds in it. I slip in the mud while walking my dog in the cold rain and bust my butt and cover myself in the mud. But when those kind of days hit I may sit in that cold mud with the rain hitting me in the face and just for a moment try to be thankful for what went right. I woke up, there is a major accomplishment. I am at an age when it isn't uncommon for those I have known my entire life to pass in their sleep. I have had many friends who didn't make it to the age I have. I am sitting on the hard ground covered in mud and I am thankful for the mud, it is said to do wonderful things for your skin. I can feel the stinging rain on my face which means that I can still feel things even if they aren't the most blissful feelings in the world. I am thankful for all the blessings in my life large and small alike. I do not delineate between large and small blessings. Blessings are blessings regardless of their size.
Finding your happiness is a state of mind, it isn't being the most beautiful, or talented, it isn't being the richest or the most famous. It is being happy no matter what gets thrown in your path. It is learning to embrace those difficult times and making them your own. It means the ability to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and continue on. It means having the state of mind that it will all work out in the end and that nothing happens without a reason.
Sometimes we won't recognize our bliss even when it is standing in front of us. It will be a stranger to us because we have not opened our eyes and our hearts to the wonderful possibilities that lay in front of us. It is like searching your entire life for the perfect partner only to realize that they have been standing by your side all along but you were to blind or to focused to realize the true potential they have in your life to make it all the better.
In order to find your true bliss you must be willing to look at life as it really is. You take off those rose colored glasses to discover that although the world isn't a rose garden it does have many aspects in that can and do make us happy when we allow them to. It is about learning to live in the moment while still holding firm to those long term goals. It means finding happiness where you can find it no matter how big or how small and living in that moment. Learning to stop and smell the roses even when you cannot afford to buy the flowers.
I hope my blog today has given you some food for thought. I hope that you take a moment in your day to look around you and truly enjoy the beauty that surrounds us all but many are so oblivious to that we are blind to them. It doesn't cost anything to stop and look around, and the world isn't going to end if you are two minutes behind schedule because you took the time to stop and admire the clouds or smell that beautiful flower, or just compliment a complete stranger on how good they smell or how pretty the look today. I have also found that random acts of kindness make me feel better. Buying a strangers coffee or complimenting a complete stranger just because I can. But I am odd like that.
Until Tomorrow blog buddies, stay safe, stay sane, and be happy.
Some people would see a cold winter day, an old wheel-barrel turned on its belly and the cold ice dripping off it. A gardener in hiatus if you will. I see something completely different. I see the beautiful patterns the ice has created on the barrel. I see the possibility of my future garden. I see in my minds eye hours of happiness spent digging in the dirt and creating food where before it was only a seed and dirt. I see my bliss. Sometimes the most mundane things in life can bring you the most happiness. It is all a matter of perspective.
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