"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti
You need to forget everything you have learned so far about how to live your life in order to be happy and normal. Happiness is not a one-size-fits-all formula that you can buy at the corner store. Yet, the medias make it sound like it. To find your happiness, you will have to unlearn everything your parents, your friends and especially the medias have ever taught you about life. You will have to go on a journey deep within yourself to find what it means to you. At first, you will feel lost and scared. You might already feel this way. Your soul is trying tell you something. because a part of you knows that something is not right. Make a commitment to yourself that you will be restless until you find your own path, your own formula for happiness. It will be scary because it will involve getting out of our comfort zone. You will also have to be a rebel at times. You will have to go against everything society teaches us about how to be and how to live and it will rub some people the wrong way.
I compare this journey with learning to walk again or with taking care of an abandonned garden. You will have to be patient with yourself: learning to walk again demands a lot of effort and compassion. I also want you to see all the small steps you take every day and celebrate the same way you would if you were taking an extra step. Please, don't expect yourself to run a marathon yet. Don't set yourself up to failure by putting this unrealistic expection on yourself. There is a marathon in your future, but today is about walking again.
I like the garden analogy as well because it reminds myself that we are human beings, living creatures, mammals on this beautiful planet and we follow the same rules as nature. We are nature. We are not a robot on an assembly line. We are inconsistent, have our own pace and require a lot of care. A garden needs to be watered, plucked of weed, fertilized in order to bloom. You are the same my dear. You are the larvae in its cocoon, gathering all its energy and strength for the incredible transformation he is about to go through. We would never call the larvae lazy or rush its transformation. We look at this process in awe. Please look at yours the same way.
There is also a bamboo plant in China that needs daily watering for 5 years before it grows incredibly rapidly - reaches 8 feet tall in 2 days. This plant reminds me to have patience and trust. Trust the process, especially when you don't see immediate results. We live in a fast-paced world. We have everything at the end of our finger tip and don't have to wait for anything anymore. Nature - and by extention yourself - is very different. You can't rush nature.
Look at nature for lessons on how to live your life. Don't forget you are part of it even if we now live in cities and are surrounded by metal and bitume and can't barely see the sky. You are a garden. You are star dust. Go back to your roots and take care of yourself the same way you would for a garden.
We live in a profoundly sick society that took us away from being a being in this world. Unrealistic expectations are making us sick and trying to fit in a box that isn't Lack of self-care is also an important aspect. You are a garden and it is your job to tend to it. You can't buy it and you can't have someone else to do for you. You have to be consistent as well otherwise the buds will die.
The "dead" of winter
Or so they say.
But winter lives
In her own ways.
- Douglas Dorian (Winter Eyes)