The last few weeks I have been on what was supposed to be a six week cross country road trip that has gone completely wrong. My partner and I’s 2006 Ford Econoline broke down not once, not twice but three times before we even made it to our first actual planned destination. Because of the impending 7-10% grade mountain passes ahead of us on our journey that the van already had proven unable to get up, we decided to drive back home east and cut our losses.
I will not going to lie, essentially failing on road tripping was stressful and sad. I arrived a few days ago at my Aunt and Uncle’s house in New Jersey completely dejected. This crazy adventure I had hoped to have with my partner, who is an engineer and does not get summers off like me a teacher…this 6 week summer vacation his work miraculously let him take in the first place…did not go as planned and felt truly like a waste of time.
But…it wasn’t a waste of time.
You see what this story of a failed road trip really has to offer myself and all of you who are reading this is that happiness is not something we pull from thin air and hope to have. On the contrary, happiness is something that is always present if we make the time to notice it.
Do you notice it? Especially when things are objectively bad, it can seem like your perspective is skewed by this cloud of negativity. It’s all you see.
Avoiding Happiness
In a lot of ways we are conditioned to see things this way because it serves a purpose. It keeps us safe. We can watch out for the things that will go wrong if we are hyper-vigilent to them.
At the same time, it can feel like happiness and objectively negative attitudes and feelings aren’t compatible, but in reality we live in a world of nuance where things are not black and white but all different shades of grey. Both positive and negative emotions and attitudes can exist within the same moment.
Shifting Attention
Life is not perfect. Life is very imperfect, but it is also expansive, and spontaneous and full. Its a matter of what we see, even, and I will say, especially when things are going wrong. Noticing happiness is about bringing your awareness to the moment you are in with an open mind to what lies there. It’s also about actively seeking out the joy, the things to be grateful for, and shifting your perspective towards the happiness available to you in that moment.
This is not to say you deny your reality and what is challenging or difficult, nor feign happiness when you are not, but it is to say that we often fail to notice the joy that lies right in front of us.
My road trip was objectively full of mishaps and stress, but I got to spend some nights nestled in a pine forest, watch the sunset over Wyoming mountains, visit my grandparents and do all the hard parts with my absolute best friend. So yeah, am I sad? Was I frustrated? Did I cry and argue? Yes…but there was also an immense amount to be grateful for, I just had to allow myself (and take action) to notice it.