When Things Don’t Get Better, Keep Trying

We all have certain ideas, hopes, dreams, of what we should have in order to live a fully happy life, always chasing an ambiguous idea of “happiness”, but like Samuel Beckett once pondered, “What do we do now, now that we’re happy?”

It will do one good to accept the fact that you do not obtain happiness, but you create it. You don’t find a happy life, you create it. Reasons to be happy don’t fall from the sky, they’re concocted like potions and spells, from the tears shed during your misfortune filled days, from the lessons your learnt from many setbacks and really heartbreaking goodbyes, the road to being truly happy, which is never-ending, it doesn’t have a destination, but it’s what you feel on the journey to reach the end that counts.

This road is a circle, a closed loop. As Mr. Beckett pointed out, there is no end, you reach the height of bliss, and then prepare yourself for the fall, you climb the mountain, only to stumble down again to the bottom. It’s alright, it’s all a part of it.

Every single thing you feel, every single you go through, every single thing you grow through, is what makes you you. Happiness, or better put ‘satisfaction’, can and must be created within yourself, wherever you are. You might be led to believe that if you go somewhere else, it’ll get better, this hole in your chest that never seems to get filled, but it’s just not true. Maybe it might give you relief at being away from familiar things for some time, but soon what you were outrunning will catch up.

Why? Because you need to confront it, accept it, let it in, let it destroy you, so you can finally be free of it. Life is about breaking yourself down and rebuilding yourself again and again. Like a sand castle, and the waves will break it down. Let it happen. Let it go.

You’re strong to withstand the wrecking. You have it in you, don’t worry.

The more you try to control things, the more you’ll lose control over them, or worse lose control over yourself while trying to control these things. It’s seems to be easily said than done, but that’s not true. Everything begins with a thought, just a thought: “I need to get out of here.” “I need a change.” “I need to change something or I won’t make it.”

For some of us, it’s not about finding happiness, but we’re so busy trying to just survive from one day to the next. But surely some moments can be acknowledged during the day when you must feel, “I’m glad I’m alive so I got to witness this.”

Life is about moments like these. It can be a song that always got through to you, or a movie that changed your life, a book that saved you from oblivion, or a person that finally found you to make you feel things you never knew existed. It could be anything.

Joy is fleeting, but it’s worth the effort. You can create the joy you’re so desperately chasing or waiting for.

If things aren’t getting better, you should, okay?