Personal happiness hinges on a practicality: if your reality lives up to your expectations, you're happy If it doesn't, you're depressed. Do you find that entirely true? I've been contemplating this today, wondering about the balance of personal happiness in our lives.
Dreams and expectations are two very different things. Dreams call for a leap of faith, trusting that there's a net so we can recreate our world with our energy, soul gifts and visions. Expectations are the emotional investment the ego makes in a particular outcome, such as winning an Oscar.
So what's the fine line here between dreams and expectations? When you pursue your dream, you become passionate and feel the energy pulse as you work toward your goal. However, expectations try to measure the pursuit, the path, of the dream in steps or milestones. Should we be measuring our happiness based on that? I don't know about you, but it seems like my personal make-up tends to get caught up in the delivery details -- or rather, the accomplishments. I'm not sure I can unlearn this and separate these any longer.
That doesn't mean I don't have personal happiness. But I'm sure that what I consider happy isn't for everyone! But it also doesn't mean that I can't explore different ways of looking at life and even if I can't make a huge change, I can make small adjustments in my thinking, I can lower my expectations in some circumstances so that I'm not always worried about the personal happiness factor. Choose to be surprised by joy!
Oprah Winfrey once said that God's dreams for her were much more than she could ever have dreamed for herself. And maybe some day soon, I'll pursue another new set of dreams!
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