I've always considered myself to be a "happy" person. I'm generally an easy going, care free, humorous, and prevailing optimist. I see the glass half full; I look past people's shortcomings to find their best efforts revealed; and I find the connection through everything that crosses my path. I believe in a universal power, a higher self, the virtue of energy.
Sometimes I can get so caught up in the idea of me, of who I am, and the various identities I've created, that whenever I fall short of those ideals, I feel at a loss. The occasional morning I wake up to an anxious stomach or the moments throughout my day where I lose patience and become short with others, I tend to beat myself up for not acting in accordance with who I "should" be.
Whenever I step outside of the lines I've drawn, I berate myself for letting anxiety get the best of my day or for allowing someone else's behavior bring out the unfavorable in me. If I'm not feeling happy all of the time, finding gratitude in the normalcy or practicing nonjudgment with others, I act as though something is wrong that needs correcting. Who and what am I trying to correct though?
I am human. I am not the shapes and colors I've painted myself to be. I am steadily changing in every moment. I'm both the purveyor of gratitude and the pioneer of doubt. I seek love in every crevice of darkness yet I am the darkness. I am also the light. I encompass it all.
Why then do I try to shut out the depths of me? Beauty doesn't solely lie in the positive demeanor and in the graceful view, but in our shadows. In our humanness.
If I am to be truly authentic and fully whole, I must find the offering in the dim spaces and welcome the moments of anger, the bouts of sadness and the common spells of uncertainty to understand the totality of who I am. I must realize that I'm here to feel all of these things; to live all of these moments. For if there are gifts in the happiness and gratitude, there also lies rewards in the sadness and blame.
We are not perfect. We are not meant to be. We are human. We are love. We are ever so presently reaching for the highest stories of ourselves. And through that, we are whole.
