This month has been a whirlwind for me, so I suppose there was no better time to track my emotions across a thirty day period. For the month of July, I tracked my dominant emotion for each day and recorded it here in this adorable little field of balloons. Looking back at this now, I can't tell much, except that on a particular day, I was sad or happy or excited. But the act of being mindful during my day, recognizing what emotion is predominant throughout all of the emotions I feel in a day, was rewarding and enlightening. How often do you stop to consider what your day has been like? How often do you stop to consider the emotion you are currently feeling and try to understand why you are feeling that way?
I stopped every day for 30 days to ponder over how I was feeling. And I made sure to allow myself to feel those emotions entirely. Often times, when we try to analyze our feelings, we kill them in the process. But it's important to let yourself feel. It's how we know we're human, it's how we understand what it is we care about.
Emotions are complex, and this was my first dive into understanding them. I definitely do recommend trying this method of mindfulness–it really forces you to take a good look inside yourself and understand what it is you're feeling, and it really forces you to feel it too.
Today was quite the adventure. I guess I never thought that I’d find the happiness I was looking for with the same old group of friends in a park just a few miles away from my own backyard. Damn, was I wrong.
Today, I went to the park of my childhood. The park I called green park, because the swings there are green instead of purple. It’s a place I know well, a place I have visited at so many different times in life. It’s full of memories. So many memories.
Today, I climbed all of the old structures. I took the old path that we used to follow like regimented soldiers: climb the horizontal ladder, over the bouncy thing, across the balance beam, through the rope swings, up the stairs of the structure and backwards down the slide. I did it, relishing the new, long span of my arms, which before had always been far too short to swing across the expanses as effortlessly as my brother did or as my taller, stronger friends did. I scoffed arrogantly at the new-found brevity of the same course that used to terrify me. I scoffed, even as I kept my eyes on my feet the whole time, the same old fear of falling tickling at the edges of my mind.
It was as though, today, I made myself look at these old childhood fears in the face and say to them, “Look, I’ve overcome you. Look at me now, I’m big enough to fight you. Look at me now, I’m grown up.”
As if to say to all those fears, “Look at me now, I’m grown up, but I can still be here. I can still play. I can still swing high enough to touch the overhanging branches, I can still run fast enough to race the wind, I can still laugh loud enough to overflow with authentic joy. Look at me now."
As if to say to all those fears that have filled me, “Look at me now, I’m not afraid anymore.”
Like swimming out alone into unknown treacherous waters, unsure where, when, or how you'll wash up.
But here's the thing: If life is a formidable, black ocean, then you are your own life raft. Everyone has a life raft in them, everyone has the ability to keep fighting.
It's up to you if you're going to swim against the current and keep yourself afloat, or if you're going to sink.
Sink or swim, baby. Sink or swim.
I am choosing to swim. And this is my journey.
Quest For Happiness
"Because sometimes, even if you know how it's going to end that doesn’t mean you can't enjoy the ride." - Ted Mosby, How I Met Your Mother.
Life ends in death. All too soon, all too suddenly.
And, nothing happens unless you do it for yourself.
These are possibly two of the most important lessons we need to learn in life. Because it's too easy to sweat the small stuff, and too easy to skip out on putting into motion the plans you've made for years.
"It’s the oldest story in the world. One day you’re 17 and planning for someday. And then quietly and without you ever really noticing, someday is today. And then someday is yesterday. And this is your life." - Nathan, One Tree Hill.
So, it's up to us to make what we want now. It's up to us to flex our basic amendment rights and pursue happiness in every degree possible.
I came to this realization one day in February of this year, sitting alone in my dorm room at 8:00 pm on a Thursday night after yet another marathon session of extreme studying. The past few months had been incredibly rough for me. I was isolated from all of my friends, because I was working hard on class work and extra-curriculars. I hadn't been home in about 2 months, I hadn't seen my parents or my dog. I hadn't really talked to anyone in a long time. I was rapidly gaining back all the weight I had lost since college started, my sanity was slipping through the cracks. I was keeping up with everything I needed to do, I was working hard, and I was getting great results.
But in the chase for this success, I had completely lost my happiness. I was lonely, sad, and exhausted. I felt… pointless. What is success in a life without significance?
This night, I was at my desk alone, eating ice cream and watching Netflix, when a scene reminded me of a song and I flitted over to YouTube to listen to it. Naturally, I fell down a rabbit hole and was about 9 videos deep when I watched the Befikre song music video.
In that moment, something happened, something clicked in my brain. I must have figured it out, that doing what I was "supposed" to do wasn't going to mean anything if it wasn't what I wanted to do, if it wasn't what was going to make me happy. I decided to be Befikre.
To stop caring about ifs and buts and stop tugging at the little threads poking out of my sweater. To stop pretending, to stop being so scared, to stop chasing the wrong things.
I figured, whatever's going to happen will happen, and I can't do anything about the things outside of my control. So, I should just keep playing the person, playing the situation, instead of playing the cards I'm getting dealt, and I should keep myself happy.
Thus was born the Quest For Happiness™.
The project has been a few months in the making. Up 'til now, it has been a lot of unabashed self-discovery. Asking difficult questions about who I am, who I want to be, and how I'm going to get there. Wrestling with the sly, cold moth that has its legs firmly gripped around my heart (Arundathi Roy) and telling it to let go. It's been an active effort to remind myself to shoulder shrug (Kevin Hart) the shit that I can’t control. It's been grueling and mind-twisting to understand what happiness even is.
But I'm starting to get the hang of it. At the very least, I'm ready to commit to this journey.
This project, then, is going to be a labor of love, a passion project, where I try to understand happiness, where it comes from and how to create it for myself. Over the next few years, I will get to the roots of the Philosophy of Happiness to understand it for myself and maybe help others see a perspective on it as well.
I have absolutely no clue what this project will entail. I have not a single idea where it will take me or what it'll produce. But even if I don’t know how something is going to end, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy the ride. And that's what life is all about–enjoying the ride, and figuring shit out as you go. Trust in the process. What I do know is that questing for happiness is an active effort. It takes daily focus to redirect myself away from bad energy and toward positivity. And the way to keep yourself on track is to hold yourself accountable.
That's where this project comes in. My hope is to populate this blog with my Quest, to document the moments I have and discoveries I make, so I can reflect on them, but so that you can, as well. The point, along with trying to understand where happiness comes from, is to pursue happiness. So, every week, I hope I can take time out and share something new, or something old, I did that brought me joy, content, fullness, or happiness.
The "rules" are simple:
I will post weekly - in the course of 7 days, there HAS to be something I did that made me happy. It doesn't need to be some giant event. It could be as simple as cooking myself a nice meal, or doing my hair in a different way, or writing something witty, or having a quick conversation with someone I missed. Because, "There's beauty in ordinary things, and isn't that kind of the point?" - Pam, from the Office.
I will get real - this quest is about finding authentic happiness. That means no faking. That means no academic language that perpetuates a clinical separation from the topic at hand. No big words used as a cop-out from actually understanding real feelings and emotions. This quest will be real, in every sense of the word. I'm actually going on this journey, and I hope you'll come along with me. But if you don't, that's cool. This is for me, and it's out here for you to see too.
The project will actively unfold here, on Tumblr. This is where the posts will be. But it will expand across all of my social media profiles. I'll post pictures, recap moments, share videos, articles, links, quotes, and all that pertain to this quest. Keep an eye out for #QuestForHappiness, as I'm sure you've already seen before, to see where the Quest takes me.
The project will span across adventuring, health and fitness, friends and family, learning kindness, and the philosophy of happiness. But it's a living, breathing project, and I'm sure it will morph into whatever shape it needs to take.
I'm excited about this project, to live it out and see where it takes me. But I'm also scared. I don't know if this will be successful, I don't know if it'll even work as I want it to. I don't know where it'll end up. But, "Being scared is good. Doesn't being scared mean you're on to something important?" -HIMYM
*Note: I am not medically diagnosed with depression, nor am a mental health professional. This is a piece of creative fiction.*
Depression is like an ocean.
A huge, throbbing mass of water, seemingly cool and calm at the surface, its depths largely unknown. Depression is like walking into the ocean, feeling the water rise against your skin, looking forward and seeing only more, and more, and more ocean.
Picture it. You are standing on the shore of a massive ocean. It stretches blue, then green, then black before you. It's giant, much bigger than you. Yet, standing in front of it, you think not of its size at all. You just feel the gentle breeze and taste the salty air. The beach is warm, the sky above is light, clear. The breeze pushes your dark hair in short puffs. It blows to the right, cutting across your back, rhythmically tapping your shoulder. You wear a loose, grey shirt that ripples in the breeze, reflecting the ripples of water if it were to lie still. The gentle breeze blowing across your face directs your eyes to the horizon, the water spanning blue-green-black before you. Storm clouds hang in the far distance, the front line of the army of black rain clouds pushing forward, eating the light out of the sky.
The sand underneath your feet burns from the hot sun earlier in the day. It's full of tiny, rounded pebbles that poke just enough to be uncomfortable. The water of the sea throbs, lapping up and down the beach. It sounds pleasant out here; you can't hear the deafening churns and crashes of the waves in the deep, black water. The very edge of the ocean creeps up the beach, bubbly white foam leading, and kisses your heels. It's inviting you in with your first taste of the cool, black sea. Your feet thirst for more, and follow the clean line of water as it slides back into the ocean enticingly, like it's wagging its finger at you in playful mischief.
Your heart flutters as your ankles submerge themselves with each step you take. You stand, looking down into the water. It's cathartic; the sweet coolness soothes the pain from your aching feet. You didn't realize you were tired until you felt the water.
Curiosity pulls you forward, moving your feet one slow-motion step through the water at a time. It fills your shins, knees, thighs, it's at your waist. Your finger-tips dip below the surface and all of your senses deactivate to feel only the cool release of soft water against your skin. Soon, your shoulders submerge, the water licking at your sun-burnt skin. You feel your feet give out, the sand beneath you loose and the floor sunk down. Your eyes snap open, you didn't realize they were closed. Your feet flex, toes finding the surface of the ocean floor. You push back, punching against the ebbing water until your heels find sand, and you can stand with your head above the water, chin breaking the surface. You're okay.
Heartbeat under control again, you wade further into the water, feet coming off the sandy ocean floor to peddle lazily behind you, hands clawing the water in front. You know not to go too far; it's dangerous. And the storm clouds that sat on the horizon just minutes ago are beginning to charge closer. You right yourself upwards, but the sandy ocean floor is long gone. You tread water, spitting salt off your tongue. Looking around, you're in the green of the ocean now.
How you got so far, you've no idea. It didn't seem that far as you were swimming, relishing the catharsis of the cool water. Surely, it was much farther out than this. Yet, it wasn't. The ocean, the tide, distorts all distances, all senses of time. A sort of fear is beginning to prickle the bottoms of your feet, missing the touch of pebbly sand. You turn, and behind you lies an expanse of green water. Confused again, you look down. Sure enough, the water that's now pressing against every square inch of your body, rocking you up and down like a buoy, is black. The tide has pushed you deeper than you ever intended to go.
You were toeing the line, dangerously but wholly unsuspectingly, and now you've crossed it. You're in the black, black covering you, black beneath you. Black above you.
The storm.
Those menacing clouds are directly above you now. Fear rushes in, with the sound of an enormous wave crashing before you. With a remaining biological instinct of fight or flight, you thrash wildly as waves crash around you, previously unheard, now deafening. You want to swim back to shore, but every ounce of energy is spent fighting against the undertow to keep your head above water, your lungs clear for air. You think, suddenly, of your legs trashing underwater, and a hot panic fills your limbs, as you picture the sharks that must be swimming beneath you, ready to strike. You picture jellyfish, stingrays, eels, piranhas, any number of sea threats that you can remember from 3rd grade. Until, a different kind of fear settles in you much deeper than any panic. A sort of despair pours down your throat and fills your stomach with wet concrete, your lungs with sharp gravel, as you realize with a sinking, damning release of air from your lungs that you are utterly alone in this swirling expanse of water.
Paralyzed, you release your hold on yourself, you let go of the line of hope that held you anchored to the shore, miles away now, and you are consumed by the blackness of the water. You watch as shades of black swirl before you, as the drumbeats of waves thump on your chest. You watch, and watch, and watch.
And after who knows how long, you find yourself washed up in another part of the world, on some beach you would never recognize, intact but never the same again.
Depression is like an ocean. Unforgiving, cruel, alone.
Poetry is the key to understanding that which we cannot comprehend.
In high school, I was taught that poetry was the art of the metaphor and that understanding this art was the most important thing we could understand in literature. I never understood why this was so important. But after reading Arundathi Roy, I get it now.
All I can say is, don’t let your sweaters unravel–read on to learn more.
Oprah is beautiful and wonderful and talented and strong and intelligent. She would make a fantastic President and I’d surely vote for her, even given my small grudge against her. That’s because my responsibility as a citizen of the United States of America trumps any petty grievances I have against the world. The time is now for change—register to vote in the 2018 midterm elections. Your voice in deciding our members in Congress, our local leaders, and the future of our country is invaluable; use it.
“He’s so sexy. And he taught me the importance of being silly.”
“Being silly is so important. Silly is the opposite of grief. It’s throwing yourself into a moment without care. You can’t always maintain your status as a dignified person– it gives you blinders. When you always expect the world to fulfill your expectations, it wears you down. It closes you off.”
“So sexy.”
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