Happiness will never come to you if you think it’s waiting for you in your future.
I’m a single woman, and I love my life. I enjoy evenings to myself and love nights out with my friends. I relish in meeting new people and trying new things. I’m also an anomaly among many women that I know.
Most of my friends don’t understand how I can love my single life so much. They desperately want to be in a relationship: to be married and to have children.
What they don’t know is that I want the same thing.
The difference between us is that I’m not living for my future. I’m living for right now. I’ve found happiness today, and I don’t believe that it can be found in the future when I reach a certain level of ‘success’.
Many people look to the future as a way to escape the pain of their everyday realities.
Too many people are spending too much time living in the future. Or in their past, reliving their old mistakes like broken records. This type of time-continuum thinking often sounds like:
“When I get married…”
“When I make more money…”
“When my children are grown…”
“When I become a parent…”
“If only I had done this…”
“Why did I have to do that?…”
The end result is usually a measure of happiness. In other words, these people honestly believe that once they finally arrive at these destinations, they’ll be ‘better off’ and happier, things will make more sense; they’ll have more time for life.
Whatever it is that they desire today, they’re constantly looking forward to it in the future. Maybe this helps them get through each day, but this type of thinking is fatal to learning the secrets of happiness today. Living like this devalues the present time.
If you’re obsessed with the future, you’ll be too busy to focus on what is happening today. Why is your happiness dependent on the presence, or time, of a person or event (i.e., if you were married, if you own a home, etc.).
What is going to happen if your soul mate is taken from you violently? What about if your child dies prematurely? How can you get back to a place of happiness and joy?
Life is generally a blur of moments, events, people, and actions.
You’ll feel two levels of regret: One because you didn’t enjoy the time you did have with them; two because you can’t go back to something that you never had.
If your source of happiness is dependent on other people, what will you do when that source is no longer in your life?
This isn’t just for people, but for job and circumstances too: that promotion that would land you over six digits, the house in a particular block of the nicest neighborhood in town. The clothes, hairstyle, and accessories. The ability for this, or for that.
All of these things can be taken away in an instant, and with them, your happiness.
Once you understand that happiness can never be reliant upon your situation or circumstances, you’ll discover that true joy comes from within.
Situations change. People come and go. If your happiness and peace is based on these variables—life’s uncertainties—then you’ll never achieve true happiness.
Instead of focusing on finding a husband, or on having a baby, live every day for its time. Enjoy where you are right now in life.
It’s not to say you won’t have lonely moments. We all have those. But those moments are just that:
Brief, short, not long, or lasting. Yes, it is often these fleeting glimpses in time that change our lives for the worse or better; but, it’s also in these flashes in our lives that we make decisions that can alter history, or doom us for eternity.
So get out, have fun, hang out with friends. Meet new people. Enjoy your husband or wife despite the pressures of finances, in-laws, and children. Find the strength to laugh and smile again, to love and relax with those closest to you.
God has you in this season for a reason. Find the lesson and allow God to do a good work in you, for the blessing of others.
Learn to embrace each moment and day, and all that it offers with wide, open arms. Strive to live with no regrets.
You are growing, maturing. You can be happy today—be happy TODAY! Be happy tomorrow. Everything that you go through today is preparing you for a blessing tomorrow, however big or small.
“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34
~SAM
