Live The Life You Want To Live

I believe that people that are unhappy with their lives are in some way unhappy with themselves.  I don't mean being unhappy about the things you can't control that life thrusts upon you, like losing a job or the death of a loved one.  I mean the unhappiness that some people feel and there is no outside explanation for it.  You know the ones that seem to have everything.  A house to live in, food on the table, a warm and loving companion, children to lovingly guide into adulthood, and they are still sad and unfulfilled.  When you have it all and still feel like your living someone else's life, that is a huge clue that you are indeed doing just that.  

I really don't care how hard it is.  If you are unhappy and can change it somehow, but don't, that is your own fault.  And I have very little patience for people who are happier with their unfix-able drama, than in finding a way to be happy with their choices.  I know sometimes we get lost or trapped and can't seem to find a way out.  I understand how black and dark it can be behind a wall, or in a pit of despair.  But I also know, having survived a few, that you have friends wanting to help you up.  Wanting to give you confidence, love and support....it's taking that support that can be hard.  It's admitting that you need to make a change.  Not to your family and friends, that's actually the easy part...but to yourself.  That's the hard part.  When you realize you want something other than what you have...you want that new life to start as soon as possible.  That desire gives you strength to change.  And when it's real it can be an unstoppable force.  Sometimes it can be real but we are so afraid to make a change we become paralyzed with fear at the imagined outcomes.  So we do nothing and fall deeper into the pit, or build the wall a little higher.  This is what denial and delusions look like...from the outside it can seem like all is well, but on the inside....the pretense of living a lie, no matter what the lie is, will sap all the happiness out of you.  Making even small infrequent happy moments, filled with stress or guilt or even anger that you aren't with the people you think you should be with, or living the life you always envisioned.  This is called regret, and it can make you a depressed and uninteresting person to be around.  I know, I was one...sometimes I still am one, but i try not to let myself fall into the pit, and I recently took a few bricks out of my wall and peeked out.  And a bunch of hands pulled me up and out, and boy was  I scared, and happy, and so touched that so many friends and family cared about what was going on in my silly little life.  But I guess that is love too, isn't?  

Change only happens when you want it to.  Until you want to change everything will remain the same.  I read something the other day that snapped me out of a pit I'd followed a friend into...won't do that again...it was dark and musty down there...anyway, the saying was:

    "When you want to succeed as much as you want to breathe...that's when you will become successful."  

I hadn't heard that one before, but I found it very true.  Breathing is easy.  We do it without thinking, and when we can't... we fight with every ounce of strength in our bodies to find a way to breathe.  And we succeed, every time.  No matter how difficult it may be to achieve, we don't even think about how hard it is to try, we just get it done.  We see no other option but to breathe.  This is how we act every time we make a decision and stick to it.  Once set in motion our determination can be unstoppable.  But this is a good thing.  This is how all change happens...one desperate moment of having to breathe and making it happen.