Happiness is not a destinations, it is a journey

For most of us this year we have been in some sort of restrictive lockdown due to Covid 19. And now, it’s looking like we are now heading for another six months. That means for us it is looking likely birthday celebrations will have to take on a different form and who knows what Christmas will look like. The world has changed and shows no signs of returning to normal just yet. Six months takes us to March 2021, that seems a long time away and will mean that we will have been in restriction for a year.

In my virtual online consulting room I have seen the toll that the Covid restrictions have taken on our mental health so far. So, I want us to get our head around the idea that happiness and a state of sanity is not something that we will bump into when this is all over. We can have booth happiness and sanity right now if we choose to. It might even be a shock that you do have a choice.

Thoughts become things

If we decide that the world is insane and unhappy then we are right and that is what we will see all around us. Most of the people I am talking with desperately want the world to be normal again and they want themselves to be normal again. The idea that normal does exist is true but our normal is what we are living right now. What we are experiencing maybe a new normal but it’s our normal and the only one we can have at this time.

At the end of this journey of Covid restrictions we may well find happier times but if we just sit back and wait to the journeys end, we are going to have a horrible time.

Happiness is not a destination it is a journey

We are told, through advertising, the media, and general expectation, that to have certain things, or to look a certain way, will make us feel good and create our happiness. This assumes that ‘normal’ and ‘happiness’ are actual states that can be achieved in this wonderful future when we have whatever it is that we want.  I am not so sure that it is that way. Why don’t we accept where things are up to now and decide how we can make the journey to the end of Covid restrictions?

For us all life has many challenges.  There will always be things to come to terms with, situations to overcome. These Covid restriction are just this. They are a challenge or will we make them into a problem? The American concept that ‘we don’t have problems we only have opportunities’ takes us forward with hope.  It tells us that problems are solvable and we can overcome them.

When life’s challenges are simply seen as problems, or insurmountable obstacles, we can easily become victims and as victims we become stuck miserable and unhappy.

I suspect happiness and being ‘normal’ is being able to see life’s difficulties as challenges and not problems. For me good mindful attitudes allow us to see our life as a journey and and not a destination. That enables us to realise that all that we ever need to do is enjoy the journey, live in the moment and arrive at the journeys end with a smile.

I wonder what it was like for those people who endured six years of war with the continual hope that it would all be over by Christmas, yet it rolled on one year after another. I am in awe of people like ‘Captain Tom’ who are able to remain positive despite the problems of life and of old age.

Once we learn to see happiness as the journey and not the goal, positivity is always available to us.  It may be that we need to ask for help, it may be that we need to do some work but we can have it right now. In so many ways the world is what we make it.

Be happy and work how to enjoy your time throughout the Covid restrictions

Take care and be safe

Sean x

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