Mixed feelings

From an early age, at Primary School, I was taught about happiness and love.   

In society today, anyone not smiling 24/7 is asked why the long face!

Sometimes, although the majority of us do not wish to disclose it, sometimes we feel down.  Sometimes it feels like we have failed or even that life is cheating us of our due.  

Social media really doesn't help as it seems everyone is loved up and happy and living the perfect life with the perfect body, perfect partner and perfect everything included, this I feel has unfortunately become society's norm.  

Anyone with half a brain now's that life is not like that and I feel sorry for the youngsters of today brainwashed by social media growing up expecting this lifestyle that actually doesn't exist, are they ebwn equipped to deal with the downfall.  24/7 society craving happiness. 

I’ve very very rarely bought in to this continuous happiness myth and believe me, I do not need to be telling myself that it is just that, a myth.  For, I know it is.  

When we are not happy we immediately feel something needs to be fixed, we cannot just feel shit because something shit has actually happened.  Something that helped me, was to substitute the word “happiness,” I didn't invent a new word, I just started instead to use a term that’s broad enough to encompass a more normal range of emotion = well-being.  

Well-being can still occur even in the midst of a low period. 

Well-being is a term that recognizes that life is a series of ups and downs or peaks and troughs, both in the macro view and on a daily basis. It is artificial and I believe near darn impossible to insist on a constantly in flowing tide.

Most of my emotional reactions come from the way I label it, my ego will jump to its own conclusions on virtually no evidence and then smash the panic button.  I much prefer to sit and work on the feeling, I know this sounds like some kind of hippie shit but it works for me so just go with it for a second, My panicky ego wants me to do something immediately to fix what it senses as a problem,  It is not comfortable simply experiencing what it considers a “bad” feeling, and immediately urges me to either suppress it or run as far away from it as possible, the further the bloody better.  I never use running away to avoid it or to deny my true feelings, been there done that and had the t-shirt stuck to my skin (the whole being gay drama).  

My emotions, besides simply being a valid part of me, hold important messages for me, these messages I cannot receive while I am legging it down the road.  

My well-being allows me to enjoy all that is good in my life, allowing me to simply let any new experience  evolve around me, And it does evolve.

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” -- this is very true in my life.  

Hard times temper me, making me stronger, more resilient, and more compassionate. Usually, I am only able to see this in retrospect, but I learn from situations like this and move forward stronger and more resilient.  

Feeling “bad,” far from being something to flee, offers me new life experience.  I often try to resist my ego and our 24/7 society, but I believe, I do gain in the richness of life when I welcome both phases of the tide, the ebb as well as the flow.