Does Our Dream Deserve Happiness?
Ideas on pursuing our individual dreams, not the dreams of others. Learning to hear our inner voice to guide us toward them while filtering out the noise of modern society’s dream pushers.
Hi,
This tweet caught my eye yesterday.
Ben’s tweet.
Image from Twitter
Here’s how I responded.
My response.
JRWI has helped me understand my own happiness perception. It became clearest to me when I heard Sharon Salzburg on a podcast.
During this podcast she said that while writing her book, Real Happiness, she wasn’t surprised most of us were unhappy. What surprised her most was that most of us didn’t feel like we DESERVED to be happy.
This resonated with me in a strong way. I realized both observations applied to me.
Since then, this awareness has helped me learn to be OK with being happy. Learning to undo the “I don’t deserve to be happy…” training embedded in me from a young age has been difficult.
The voices of worthiness and shame described by Brene Brown are still with me. Yet most of the time they don’t predominate any longer.
I am noticing that the voices get stronger as I start our family’s summer vacation this year.
Does someone who’s not chasing The Dream deserve to be traveling to beautiful places in Europe with his family?
Does this person deserve to be taking vacation at all, especially since it’s not a “paid” vacation?
Who does this person think he is, traveling around the world on vacation? After all, his parents didn’t allow themselves to deserve it until they retired?
These are the voices that are with me during these early vacation days. Deep down, I realize the voices are there, yet they don’t have to control my experience.
I’m hoping this awareness helps me to prevent the voices from dominating the trip, so I can fully experience the joy and happiness that experiences like this are able to make space for.
How about you? Do you deserve to be happy? Why or why not?
Let me know by replying directly to this email.
Chris
Semi-Random Thoughts
This the 100th issue of the JRWI newsletter 🎉 My gratitude for being along for the ride 😊
The JRWI subscriber count dipped below 600 to 598 last week. Even though I’d like to pretend it doesn’t bother me, the dip does feel discouraging. If you’d be kind enough to share this issue on social media or forward it to a friend, to help spread the word and help counter what feels like a slow decay, I’d greatly appreciate it 🙏
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