Welcome to my mid-2018 life lessons. A keen look into the mind of a serial emotional over-thinker.
Long story short, the remixed title of the movie became my go-to social media
hashtag i.e #inpursuitofhappiness. It was inspirational and in all essence of the word, a really good
hashtag to use in this day and age of vanity with a tinge of humility. For all you
social media fans out there, we see it all the time; find a cute photo of
yourself, then add an inspirational tagline to avoid the vanity of it all.
Besides being a good caption to use, those words came at a
time in my life when I needed to find MY happiness. Since then, I have
embraced it beyond the cute photo tagline that it is. It’s one of my mantras, and somewhere in my subconscious I have engraved those words. It’s
become a decision flowchart to 80% of my decisions. All my arrows in the flowchart eventually lead to these questions, “Does it make
me happy? Will it make me happy? Am I happy?” (The ‘it’ can be anything or anyone, I don’t
discriminate.)
However, let me not fool you into thinking that I have found
life’s answer to true happiness. Don’t go buying into this idea of pristine
pursuit! The next paragraph will sound as confusing as it sounds in my head
right now, but for the past 36 months and counting, I have learnt my lesson.
My pursuit of happiness has led me to confusion,
frustration, doubt, and all kinds of emotions that are far from being ‘happily ever
after’ endings. I came to the realization of how easy it was to lose track of
reality by chasing after happiness. By getting caught up in chasing what I
thought would make me happy, I lost sight of one thing. Rather I slowly
degraded the use of one thing; My head!
Yes, my head. For those with a vivid imagination, think of it as running around doing everything with a headless body (apologies for the callous
imagery). You can’t see, you can’t hear, you can’t talk, you can’t eat. In a
nutshell, you lack basic human senses! Above all, you can’t think without a
head!
With that twisted picture in mind, let me get to the point.
By being caught up in finding what makes me happy, I wasn’t seeing the whole
picture. The whole picture being, HEAR T+ HEAD. Following my heart but using my
head. I needed to be logical. If I kept making haphazard decisions about this, I would eventually end up with short-term happiness
To be honest, I think I know what makes me happy, but
am I really being smart about it?
For every action, there’s an equal and maybe opposite reaction, right? This was the question that turned my Will Smith mantra (*In pursuit of happiness) upside down! Knowing myself, I think with my feelings first and never with my head. My feelings drive me.
For every action, there’s an equal and maybe opposite reaction, right? This was the question that turned my Will Smith mantra (*In pursuit of happiness) upside down! Knowing myself, I think with my feelings first and never with my head. My feelings drive me.
I accepted the fact that any decision about my happiness,
is like any other decision; it comes with consequences that eventually bring in
so many other factors into play.
Therefore, I don’t want to make dumb moves that lead to a miserable life,
when I could lead a happier life by using my head (thinking logically) while following my heart (using my feelings).
Happiness comes with a lot of excess baggage that needs both
the heart and the head.
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