Straight lines are the worst. When I was in college, majoring in Fine Arts, I had an assignment that required straight lines. Failed. My professor couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do it. It was frustrating. Today I spent a lot of time using a straight edge trying to get the beams of this church to look right. I did better than when I was a college freshman, but it wasn’t easy. I’ll come back to it tomorrow and see what I can do. This nocturne is growing me as a painter.
I had some epiphanies yesterday: What is happiness and how important is it? I believe happiness is feeling good - feeling things like appreciation, satisfaction, gratitude, optimism. But it gets tricky. Wouldn’t an addict say that when they’re high they feel good? Isn’t that why they do it? Are addicts happy?
When I was in my twenties I was very depressed. I was unhappy. I had happy moments, but overall I was an unhappy person. I felt like a victim. I felt like life was against me, that others were against me. I didn’t believe in people. I didn’t feel respected by them or accepted by them. I felt inadequate and incompetent. I didn’t see myself as worthy or deserving of good things. I didn’t respect myself. Life was bleak.
As I got older, after years of devouring self-help books, therapy, seminars, workshops, you name it, I found tools for change. What I discovered was how to relinquish negativity and create positivity instead. I believed that I had developed into a depressed person and that I could develop into a happy person - without needing to get high - on chemicals, or love, or food, or money, or clinging to people, or otherwise dominating and being top dog. Happiness did not equate egomania.
What I started to do was work on my resentments, Byron Katie style. What is it that I’m really upset about? The short answer? I’m almost never angry at someone or something else. It’s always about me. When I’m resentful, bitter, or angry at a person or institution, I always know that the root of that rage is me. I did something I didn’t want to do. I said something I knew I shouldn’t have. I was behaving in ways that were selfish, self-seeking, or dishonest. I was full of fear and I didn’t know how to face it or make healthy choices in the face of it. Fear won and my own character disappointed me. That is frustrating and heartbreaking, and the only cure is awareness. Which takes me to the next thing I focused on.
I started to look at my thoughts and beliefs. What is it that I’m rambling on about in my head? Is it helpful? Am I blaming, shaming, or punishing? Am I feeling sorry for myself? Am I making what other people say or do about me? Taking things too personally? Am I acting as if I’m powerless, with no choice? I think of an animal that’s cornered and can’t see a way out. What kind of crazy shit am I thinking and believing? Because the truth is that I’m almost never cornered or caged, at least not by anyone or anything else.
I started to see happiness as freedom from suffering. Freedom from victimhood, powerlessness, resentment, and blame. Happiness was looking for what’s working in my life, appreciating simple things and letting go of things I had no control over. Happiness was learning that humans are only capable of so much. We are fallible and limited. I’m fallible and limited, and it’s ok.
So, how important is happiness? I’m beginning to see that it’s the only thing that matters. Mentally working my way out of misery and suffering is the only thing that matters. It’s a practice, and every day gives me opportunities to work through something. I had to figure out how to make straight lines this morning. I found a tool. That’s small, but twenty years ago it would have been the reason I quit working on the painting and walked away from the sale.
Today, the things that overwhelm me are bigger than straight lines, but there’s still a way to work through them. I still have choices that are productive, useful, and healthy, choices that lead to a happier life.