Happy?

Are we ever really truly happy? 

Or is our happiness relative, something that we feel only when tied in to our own?

That ever elusive source of eternal joy that we hear about in the media, can that ever be real? 

How do you know that you’re happy, unless measured by some yardstick, relating it to someone else’s definition of joy? 

It all somehow leads to- what you’re told you should look like when you’re happy, what you’ve been programmed to project when in love or when things go your way.

 

I question…

Who has set the bar?

Who created the standards?

Why is a smile, a smile?

Who determined that the marker of happiness should be laughter?

What if we are all just tricked by years of conditioning, handed down a legacy of ‘smiles’ from generation to generation…that we just mindlessly perpetuate.

Convinced that we are in fact okay with the world around us

When there’s so much more that we can feel, experience and express, if only we tested the limits, went for gold and pushed the boundaries. 

The ultimate question…

Is, who are you and what are you feeling right now? 

Do you know the true meaning of happiness?

Is it too late for 'happiness 'to be your fate?

My own person

Will I ever really be my own person?

Or rather a product of desire, an amalgamation of somebody’s dreams and desires and will to be brought into creation 

And so I am shaped, moulded by thoughts, views, words, experiences, bombarded from the minute that I first hit the world 

Even the first word that I uttered was probably not my own, but by the insistent coaxing of any number of individuals trying to influence me with their thoughts 

Even the language that I speak is not mine, 

As it is spoken, handed down in code from generation to generation, foreign until it reaches my tender ears

Making sense only now that I am conditioned toward it  

So I ask, what is yours?

What is mine?

Who are we?

Who are you?

Am I me?

In this world that we see

Am I ever really my own person? 

…Or just a link upon the never-ending chain of humanity?

'Don’t think, just do!’

‘Don’t think, just do!’

These were the words uttered to me one day in the midst of a particularly critical task that I was engaged in. New to the field in what I was doing at the time, the words grated on my fledgling senses. 

Here I was so green, so eager to make good, utterly careful in the line of duty.  Planning down to a ‘tee’, writing lists, checking off as I went along, verifying and counter verifying that I had all the accurate details, measurements and logistics. 

All of which in one fell swoop was being negated by one flippant statement…’don’t think, just do!’

‘On what planet do you live?’ would have been my snarky retort to what I had deemed to be a negligent statement at the time. 

Only I hadn’t had the courage to voice the words running through my head at that moment, because I was fairly new at what I was doing at the time, wanting to learn it all yet not wanting to upset the apple cart.

Years later, done with my fire breathing moment of inward anger done, I can honestly look back and call that red flag utterance a pivotal moment in my life. Only once my pulse rate had calmed and my vanity receded a bit, did I realize that there can never be such a guarantee that everything would go right or according to plan even if I did exert a ‘choke-hold’ over things and strive for that ever elusive word; ‘perfection’.

There’s just that moment, that little fragment of realization that hits, that tells you to release your hold to a power slightly larger than yourself. That little thing called instinct that tells you somehow that you are part of something so much bigger and yet it is in the palm of your hand.

I’m beginning to learn how to trust it. To understand that there is an innate radar that screams at you when you are ‘off’ in your decisions and judgments’ and sings to you in a golden voice when you are exactly where you need to be at a certain point in time.

I look back at that moment uttered by that old colleague and send up a little word of thanks that the words had the ability to grate at my senses, get under my skin and strike a chord somewhere deep within my heart.

Thoughts like little seeds

 I have thoughts inside my head…

Like little seeds of popcorn simmering in a large vat of boiling oil, waiting to explode, dying to get out. 

There are bright ideas it seems, hopes and dreams and half formed schemes 

How will they unfold?

Will I have a burst of inspiration followed by action?

Or will they just wither away and die? 

Unfulfilled, not realized

Whichever way you look at it, whenever you see me

I am dying… to live

I am living… to be ME!

Reign of the rain

I look to you as that uncomfortable stranger that I would meet on the train, hoping by all means to avoid you and yet you go on cozying right up to me oblivious of my discomfort and space bubble anyway.

I have mixed feelings about you rain.

I really don’t want to be exposed to your splashing presence, it makes me feel a little uneasy, makes me want to act out, flex my muscle and take back my personal space. I glare at you with an almost resentful stare; you laugh and send a shower of playful revenge my way. 

As time goes by, I’m still not quite inclined to put up with your presence, but you persist anyway, I begin to soften, wondering, why has the fight has gone out of me today? Little by little I begin to grudgingly enjoy your company and find ways to make your presence in my life slightly more palatable. A steaming mug of coffee, a seat near my windowsill, a notebook in hand, fluffy socks on my feet and some crusty warm chocolate pastries on a little plate, make me less inclined to glower moodily at you. In fact there’s something about you now that has set the scene for me to create!

Against your dull grey landscape my mind suddenly runs riot with colour. It is the perfect foil against which I start to dream up characters for my latest attempt at a short novel. One by one they all emerge, creating dialogue, to flesh out rich and complex human relationships, intrigue, drama… The words flow from my pen, I become a writer, a screen writer, a director, a poet, my goodness! My heart overflows with feeling, fingers ache to keep up with my scrawling and little cryptic doodles, all of which, I’m sure will make it onto my laptop someday. 

I don’t know how it happened but it did. You bewitched me with you persistence, forced me to dig deep, to imagine, to stretch the capacity of my mind. Then just as I had begun to warm to your cold embrace you decide to bring your cousin ‘sunshine’ out to play. 

That two day spell, I wasn’t looking forward to, became my creative capsule, a sanctuary. It was a moment in time, to stop, be still and reflect and now you’ve gone and taken it all away. Until next time, fare thee well… silly rain, take care of your whimsical self.

We will meet again!