(Original title – The Writing on the Wall)

Yeah, I know, but it was kind of perfect to keep the original title.

I feel like it’s time for another jumbled rant.

So I was sitting in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, 90 minutes until my flight leaves, scrolling through Facebook. An article appears about how our pursuit of happiness is making us more anxious than ever, and it got me thinking.

“Follow your bliss” is the biggest bit of bullshit I have ever heard. I know that I am doing what makes me happy at the moment – travelling and going to ridiculous mouse-themed amusement parks and buying $500 of wizard-themed merchandise – but when I was working, I had to balance what made me content with what provided me the ability to pay my bills. I’ve chopped and changed jobs in the past, sometimes by choice and sometimes the choice was made for me in the form of a redundancy with a nice little cash payment for my inconvenience. But I’ve long since stopped looking for a job that makes me happy, and settled with a job that I don’t hate myself for doing that lets me pay my bills and do some fun stuff.

There is no job that will pay me to sit at home teaching my cat new tricks. Or going to above-mentioned theme parks. Or that lets me sleep as late as I want and read the news all day while bingeing on Netflix shows and drinking far too many cups of tea. That is what brings me bliss.

I find bliss in small moments, like being thanked for going to an appointment with someone, or helping tidy someone’s house when they’re sleep deprived, or those moments after my brother leaves for work and the cat is still snoozing on my bed and I know I have the house completely to myself before the world wakes completely up.

I do my best to avoid anxiety and stress, especially over little things that I can control. I try to avoid getting myself sucked in to stressful situations happening around me, especially ones I can’t help with. I often worry just a little that maybe my friends start to feel that I’m an emotionless robot just rolling on through my short battery life not engaging, but I just can’t. If I got sucked in to worrying about what everyone else is doing, I will forget to have concern for myself, and I’ll lose sight of what is most important to me because I’ll be too busy making my death as easy as possible for those around me. I don’t want to focus on how little time I have left to do the things that bring me bliss, but at the same time, I need to focus on exactly this.

I have friends who keep telling me they don’t want to burden me with what’s happening in their life because I obviously have worse things happening overall, but it makes me feel like I’m not valued enough to make a decision about what I’m capable of hearing. Having cancer doesn’t mean I can’t be a part of your hard times too. There are some days when I can’t engage and involve myself, but I’m always clear about if I can or not.

Following your bliss for an everyday, 9 to 5 worker is not possible without sacrificing things that are important, like sleep and calm and rest and self-care. If you’re running yourself ragged because you’re filling your plate with things that you want to do and then complaining to me about how tired you are, maybe re-adjust your priorities and put yourself first. If you’re working in a job that you hate, look for another that might make you not want to get out of bed in the morning. You are capable of solving your own problems without a cheer squad behind you offering you support. You’re an adult, so take some responsibility for your own life.

And for fucks sake, do not complain to me about how tired you are or how much pain you’re in because unless you have a chronic illness or small human that makes you feel like a puppet whose master is no longer holding the strings and you are literally dragging your limbs out of bed just to say that you have achieved something today, you do not understand what fatigue or exhaustion or tired is. Get back in your box and reassess your situation. (Exception to that is mothers.)

Point of this is, you are an adult and you do not live in a dream world where you can literally have everything you want. The cake is a lie, eat your salad. You are the one thing in life you can control.

I’m not saying that you can’t find your happiness or bliss, because it’s something different to everyone. But sometimes your bliss is hiding within you, instead of in your surroundings and doings.

Look harder.

 

(The article in question is here: How our happiness pursuit is making us more anxious than ever, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 July 2018, Jill Stark)