The quest for happiness

So..I don't really know who is out there reading this or who really cares but I'm gonna lay some stuff out there and see how it makes me feel. If you've got any wisdom to add, please go right ahead and do so...


‎"Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation." Oscar Wilde


I had a breakdown earlier today. I've had more than a few but this one was different. I actually vocalized something that I have been feeling for quite some time. I'm not happy. I haven't been truly happy in years. I wish I could express the pain that this causes me, to actually say this and know how true it is. To make it even more concrete, my mom acknowledged that she has not seen me truly happy in quite some time. Oh sure, there have been moments, days, weeks even, where I have been on some kind of high but when I come home and sit by myself and think back on things I'm not happy, not content. I'm constantly on the search for my place in this world.

I just re-read that paragraph and boy do I sound miserable..I even considered changing the word happy to some other emotion, trying not to deal with what I'm actually feeling. I can't do that. I need to face this head on.

Let me clarify, I have a good life. I have a full time job that I enjoy (most days), I have a wonderful, loving family, a roof over my head, and food on my table. I have a 'strong' faith in God though some days he and I have words, my relationship with him is a constant work in progress, but who's isn't. I am a positive person who really does enjoy life. I find beauty in the little things, I smile, I laugh, I'm not someone who would strike anyone as being a depressed person. But I am. I was diagnosed with depression in 2007 along with anxiety which I have had since I was a kid. I'll spare all of the details for another time (maybe) but lets sum it up with this: I was on a cocktail of meds for a year or two but I have now chosen the natural route back to a healthy state of mind...whatever that means.

Back to today...I've been feeling stuck in a rut for quite some time. Going through the motions, the daily grind, that kind of thing. A little less than a month from now I will be 23 years old. This is not where I thought I'd be at 23 years old. I thought by this point I would have at least graduated from college (the depression thing really messed that up) and maybe even be on my way to the alter or having kids. Basically, I thought I'd have done a little something more with myself at this point in my life. I've mostly come to terms with not having finished college yet but I know that at this point I am certainly not ready to go back. Everything else though, I've having a hard time well...not having. Not having the guy, not having the babies, not having the house and and the picket fence and the life I've always thought would be "mine" at this point. I've always been really eager to grow up. When I was a kid I would rather hang out with the adults or my older siblings than kids my age. I do a lot of praying about this, why would God give me such a strong desire for these things if it wasn't in his plan? Why won't he just show me his plan!?!?!? Like I said, sometimes I have some words with God..that's usually when he gives me the silent treatment and waits until I cool my jets to show me a little bit of what he's got in store for me.

Here's what I know about happiness, it has to come from within, it can't be rooted in anything or anyone other than yourself. I'm told that the only way to find true happiness, and peace for that matter, is to allow God to mold you and work his plan through you. I know these things yet I keep looking for happiness in ALL the wrong places. So here's my challenge, my quest, not necessarily to find happiness, I'm pretty sure it's right in front of me. What I need to find is a way to relinquish all control and allow God to guide me down the path he laid out for me before I was a twinkle in my mamma's eye and let the happiness that's in my heart, that he put there before he formed me blossom and work it's way out...

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." Jeremiah 1:5

I have NEVER been good at setting goals, but I am setting at least one for myself right now...hopefully more to follow..
I will blog about my quest for happiness at least once a week which means that a little over a year from now, on my 24th Birthday, if I still feel like I haven't given in to Gods plan and haven't found Happiness independent of anyone or anything I can at least go back and see what I have learned from a year of focusing on it...