Happiness

I had an epiphany last night.

I was speaking to my wife about happiness, or the lack of it in my life. I pointed out her amazing ability to come to a decision point, evaluate reality exactly as it is, make a decision, and NEVER look back. She never second-guesses herself, wastes little time on worrying about the consequences or moral implications. She embraces and enjoys her choices. She pursues her choices without holding anything back: fully, completely, and with abandon. She is unreservedly immoderate in her commitment to being happy. Of my statement, she said "that is so completely true". This is a wonderful gift. It allows her the freedom to make choices in the pursuit of happiness, even questionable ones, and live in the present. It allows her the freedom to live. It has enabled her to not only pursue personal happiness, but also accomplish amazing feats: start a non-profit, switch careers (twice), go on hiking and biking adventures. Sometimes there are bad consequences to her boldness, but usually not. I told her I envied her ability to do that. Her response was that maybe that could be one of the things I tried to change about myself. She is right. Absolutely.

If I wanted to flatter myself, I would say that I have a strong sense of morality or at least responsibility. That is probably partially true. Another view, probably more accurate, is that I allow myself to be ruled by fear. I fear the possibly negative consequences of a bad decision, and allow that fear to "force" me into a very constrained and rigid life. As this blog shows, I agonize endlessly over decisions, afraid to pursue my happiness, because Bad Things could happen. Not only does this prevent me from making choices that would result in my happiness, but even when I do, I find it difficult to own them and enjoy them. How utterly stupid.

I have lived my life so prudently and cautiously that I now have a lot of regrets over lost opportunities to love, to travel, to have adventures, to live "dangerously", to be free and happy. I see life through the lenses of a 30-year outlook. I rarely live entirely in the present, the now, and have hard time enjoying it. What a tragedy, what a real loss and what a waste of a life.

My epiphany was that I need to be more like my wife. I need to be happy. In this lifetime. I need to live more in the present, not in a 30-year future. I need to occasionally make choices that make me happy, right here, right now. I need to own them, embrace them, enjoy them. I need to at least occasionally forget my responsibilities, duties, what I "should" do, stop imagining evertything bad that *could* perhaps happen. Make a choice and go with it. Immoderately and imprudently.

This is hard for me. It involves the risk of failure, rejection, and loss.

I don't want to live with any more regrets over things I was afraid to do and thus didn't try. If I fail, having tried, good. I just don't want to not try out of fear anymore.

No more fear.