Sigh. Back to reality. I've been off the face of the earth for several days now. Not just away from here, but... away from, well, everything. My head's just been somewhere else. I've been happy.
Part of me, a very large part, was rebelling against returning to the reality of cleaning, cooking properly (instead of just microwaving gyoza), getting a normal amount of sleep, doing the work I'm supposed to be doing. I'd rather sit in my little dream bubble, check out of this world and head off to another at the first chance I get. I don't know how many of you can understand this. Maybe I seem crazy. The past week has been like an extended daydream.
Really, I was rebelling against the word should. A little voice in my head, a small voice which was easy to ignore, was telling me that I was destroying everything I've worked for in the past month. But I didn't care. I was tired of doing what I should be doing. If the happiness project is about happiness, and if I'm infinitely happier sitting at home, alone, reading all day, then shouldn't I be doing that instead of forcing myself to go out, forcing myself to work, to clean, to interact? How much of this happiness project is about actual happiness, and how much of it is forcing myself to be the person the world expects me to be?
I was angry.
But, I woke up this morning and I knew the dream bubble was popped. No matter how much I wanted to stay safely inside it, I had to get out. The longer I stayed, the closer I would come to destroying everything in my life. A dream bubble isn't self-sustaining. Eventually, I would have to go out, even if it were just for a breather. But once I did, I would be crushed by the enormity of how everything's changed. It's the difference between happiness now and happiness down the road. Happiness now is the bubble. Happiness later is a career, friends, a clean home, being well-nourished... If I didn't know that I had all those things now, even if I didn't want to deal with them, I wouldn't survive in my bubble. If I stay in my bubble too long, they will disappear, and I won't be happy anymore.
True Happiness, I realized, is about finding the balance between present happiness and future happiness. Without a balance, we're always going to be unhappy--if we're only thinking about the present, we're going to find our options getting smaller and smaller as we cut off future paths for ourselves. But, if we only think about the future, we will constantly be putting off our needs for something intangible. After all, we never actually reach the future-- we always stay in the present.
