Simplicity

If you’re familiar with this blog address (before I deleted it for a few months), you had come to expect a certain type of posts.  It’s going to be different, now.  Please, give me a few minutes to explain my new direction, though.  You may find the new direction much more relevant and useful.

Forward to Happiness was initially set up as a response to my divorce, and I processed out loud a bit to help others in similar situations learn from my mistakes and my lessons learned.  It pointed towards new happiness, but it tended to point in only one direction.. towards finding new love and romance.  That is extremely short sighted and somewhat inaccurate.  While romance CAN be an element in a happy life, there are two fatal flaws in that thinking in opposite direction.

First, romance is much more than happiness.  It is also pain and struggle.  When your partner hurts, you hurt… or they hurt for you in your struggles.  Or, it’s not happy OR sad feelings but curiosity as you learn things together or about each other, awe in the wonder of things, peace of quiet security in just knowing they are there for you and more.

But, also .. happiness is found in so many other places, people, and even in yourself.  It is found in the connection with friends, the excitement of a ball game, a concert. a sunset, a discovery of a new fact, or in something you achieved in yourself or enjoyed BY yourself.  Indeed, even sex can be a singular joy, though obviously that isn’t the same as it increasing the connection to another.  Still… if you are alone, try that rather than with someone that you know is an unwise mistake.

When I was young, I was kinda nerdy and wore glasses and was kinda overweight.  So, my opinions for romance was rather limited.  The only girls I kissed before I graduated high school were at church camp.. ha.  So, I had to find other paths to joy.  I spent a lot of time by myself, and I came to like myself and my curiosity.  I found joys in building electric things, burning things with the sun and an old glasses lense, exploring with woods in my home, riding my bike, reading comic books, learning things, winning awards for learning things, listening to music, playing sports, and more.

Later, I would be married for a long time to one ex that hardly noticed me and would later repeat that error, so… again… I had to find joys in other things in those times and the time in between.  I went to Niagara Falls twice, I walked the park and explored the city of Boston, I read books to my children and played a big part of raising them, I read books, I saw art in museums and ball games and fireworks and much more…all without a woman as the source of those joys.  Did I have joys with my ex’s or others (before they rightfully ended or toxic problems were revealed)?  Yes.. but they were just a part of my happiness, and it would take me YEARS to realize that the me that was with them was still me and that the joys I experienced were still valid, even if not shared and would not remain.  THEY were not the source of MY joys.. simply the target or influence.

So, the new direction will be more broad.  There’s a LOT of means to happiness, and I do not believe and will not maintain that you should wait on a person to start enjoying them.  Make your own happiness, today… in whatever form that will take.  I hope you stick around as I build up this blog and reform it into an avenue to assist you in that process.  Thank you.