Tingle ourselves with the joy of mere living

Not everyone will be able to relate to your happiness.

Certain people will treat your desires with disgust and rejection. Some might even resent the shit out of you because you have the nerve to actual enjoy things.

It’s the strangest reaction. Who knew that being fulfilled would be such an affront to people’s soul?

The key is not getting sucked into the vortex. Because there will definitely be a part of you tempted to summon up some negativity to harmonize with their reality. Make them feel less alone in their cynicism.

But you have to resist. You have to tell yourself that it’s okay to enjoy things, that it’s okay for people to see you outwardly enjoying them, and it’s okay if not everyone understands that.

Weiss’s book on life balance has been a touchstone for me in regards to this subject. He uses the term unique fulfillment. After all, life is short and our society offers us a variety of choices to fulfill our quest for learning, recreation, and growth. But once guilt is removed from that process, then the courage to stand alone and to enjoy ourselves is greatly facilitated.

Key word in his philosophy is guilt. That’s the emotion that takes over when we forget who we are. We’re temped to heed the voice of the ego and feel regret towards our own bliss.

As if we were committing some kind of sin for relishing life in a way that’s unique to us.

Quite the opposite. The real sin is being afraid to tingle ourselves with the joy of mere living. The real sin is feeling bashful about singing at the top of our lungs on the way to work because we’re afraid somebody in front of us might stop in their tracks and look behind them with the stink eye.

Let us learn how to roll our eyes at other people’s judgment. It has zero nutritional value for us. Let is march forward, staggering under the trance of delight, if only to be the carrier of joy.

Because in the real world, there is no comments section. Yes, people can say whatever they want about the things we love and the way we love them, but ultimately, those words wash away in the wind like ashes.

It’s not our job to make people understand our happiness.

It’s our job to feel our happiness, and infect others with it. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How are you making people’s judgments less relevant to you?