I have been pondering what to write for this month's post, seeing as I have so many thoughts about so many things, but nothing really stands out. Or maybe something does stand out. It is namely a question. Can there truly be a happily-ever-after in this thing we call the human condition? If so, what would that happy ending look like? Is it the same for everyone, or are there slight variations on it, depending on what kind of person you are? Ok, that was more than one question. But the gist is this: we all want to believe in happily-ever-after.... but when we face the "real" world, it doesn't look like there is such a thing as that.... for ANYONE. And the sad fact is, this makes many of us cynical. Or we go to the opposite extreme. We want to escape, and live in a fantasy world. Or we even live in the middle of these two extremes, trying to find balance, and we keep telling ourselves that we are content with mediocrity, that we are satisfied with "just ok", or that its ok that we didn't get EXACTLY what we wanted, that second best is "good enough".
This all leads to another question. If we have this desire to be wildly joyous, to be completely content, to actually find that "one" thing (or more than one thing, in some cases) that fills our hearts to the brim, and into overflowing, why is it that we never seem to be satisfied, or be able to say "enough" in this frustrating life? Some of you may be saying to yourself, but I am content, I have everything I need. What more can someone ask for? Now be honest with yourself. Is being merely content what you have always longed for? Is it enough for you to simply have everything you need? Or do you silently dream of the day when you will have everything you want as well?
I am not saying that we are never truly happy on this journey of life. It has been my personal experience, though, that there is always the anticipation of what might be "just around the bend", that I may even have a good life, but its not the best life, so I must continue on my search to find the next thrill or adventure that is going to fill the unquenchiable hole in my heart of hearts that always wants more, and is never completely satisfied. But it's also true that with this undeniable longing, there is a silent fear in yet another question: what if I got what I always wanted? And what if it was exactly to my specifications? What then? Would I finally be happy, and find my "happily-ever-after"?
And here is another troubling thought. Maybe I don't want to reach the "ever after". Maybe I rather enjoy the pursuit more than I enjoy the arriving at something. I don't think this is true though. I think the main reason why I, why all of us, keep pursuing is because the "next" thing just doesn't cut it, and we are looking for the real thing all the time.
Well, it should be obvious to you, the reader, at this point, that I am chock full of questions, but not many answers. What I do know is that life has never been easy for me. I am accustomed to being quietly discontent most of the time. And for those of you who have followed my blog, you may begin to understand that although I do not willingly invite pain into my life, I have become an expert in many of its nuances. Up to this point, the most painful thing I ever went through was losing the man I thought I so desperately wanted. And that is where I begin to see the key to the problem: I THOUGHT I wanted.
Do you ever spend time thinking about exactly what you want? I know I do. I mainly think about this often because I am often put in a position where what I want is brought to the forefront of my mind. Why? Because, as I am on this journey towards recovery, and all that it means to recover, I am often asked by those helping me along this journey, what do you want your life to look like in the next few months? The next year? The next five years? And so on it goes. I do believe it takes skill to hone and be able to truly determine what I want from life, instead of just blindly going about my day, just trying to meet "deadlines" or looking for the next fun time I can have.
It is no small thing to plan out your life. But a plan is meaningless if you don't take the necessary steps to implement it. And actually implementing the steps can often be the hardest thing you will ever do. But always behind all this planning and all this doing is this very slippery and tricky question: WHAT DO I REALLY WANT??? Not what does mom and dad want me to do? What does my church expect of me? What do my friends want me to do? What does society think I should want? It takes great effort, at least for me, to quiet all this noise of expectations from other people and listen to myself and find out, after all, what does Crystal want?
To make matters worse, behind every want, I am beginning to see that there is a deeper longing that the superficial want is pointing me to. And the difficult thing here is that if I just try to satisfy the superficial want, the deeper longing will go unment and I will still be unsatisfied, but not know why I feel that way.
For example, I want to be beautiful. But why do I want to be beautiful? Is it just for the sake of asthetics, to make my environment more pretty? Well, no, not exactly. If I dig a little deeper, I find that this desire to be beautiful is really a longing to be loved. Follow my train of thought for a minute. Beautiful people seem to get what they want more than the not so beautiful. And the message the world is always giving me (I am guessing it gives you the same message too) is that if you look good, you can have whatever you want. People tend to gravitate to beautiful people. Therefore, if I am beautiful, I will attract people, and just by those people being in my presence, they will love me. I know there are a lot of falsehoods in this train of thought, and I won't show them to you right now. Regardless though of my faulty line of thinking, I still want to be beautiful so I can be loved. My desire to be beautiful is simply a mask, or disguise for the deeper longing to be loved.
So what I find is this dualism between what I want and what I long for. And they are always fighting to get the upper hand. So who is going to win? That all depends on which one I pay more attention to. What's a girl (or guy) to do? Well my suggestion for this problem is to really tune in to these wants that we all have and try to find out what the deeper longing is.
Wouldn't it be great though, if there were some instruction manual that told us what those longings are, and not only that, but how to fulfill them? So remember that problem I told you about? The one about where I THOUGHT I knew what I wanted? Let me just cut to the chase and tell you what I am driving at. I do not believe that I am the best judge of what is good for me or what will make me truly happiest. I do, however, believe that there is someone who does know, and I believe this someone did write a book that tells me what will, in the end, truly satisfy me. I know I may lose some of my readers when I say this next statement, but I am going to say it anway. I think God is that someone, and the Bible is His instruction manual for how to satisfy the human heart. You may disagree with me. I am not going to argue with you about the veracity of the Bible or whether God even exists. It's a matter of faith whether you believe these things or not.
So back to the question of is there such a thing as happily-ever-after? Well, maybe thats the wrong question to be asking. Maybe I should rather ask, how can I have my happily-now-forever. Here's a novel thought: maybe, just maybe, happiness is not a destination, but a journey. This thought gives me hope. It means that my endless search can finally come to rest, not in some distant maybe point in the future, but it can find its longings answered right now, here in this moment. How? Well, the Bible tells me that happiness is not found in a thing, but in a Person. Who is that Person? That Person is Jesus. And I for one believe that Jesus is the answer.
I'm sure some of you were hoping when you started reading this post that my train of thought would end up somewhere else, with some new, exciting, earth-shattering idea. That's just it though. There is nothing, and noone, more earth-shattering and controversial than Jesus. This is why Jesus rings true for me as being the answer. There is no other story out there quite like Jesus' story.
Well, I hope if nothing else, I have given you, and myself, some more to think about. It is true that I, or anyone for that matter, can't tell you where to find happiness or what it looks like. You have to go on that journey for yourself. But these are my thoughts, and I hope you will take them into consideration. Just more ideas from the mind of Crystal =)
By: Crystal Nylander
