Learning to live for what you love

The hardest thing I’ve learned this year is to be happy.

You would think with all the courses I’ve taken and healing sessions I’ve had, I would have known that already.

But it turns out I had to learn this one the hard way.

I’ve actually always been terrified of happiness. It was on some level the worst thing that could have happened to me.

I know you first thought might be: “What the hell? As if being happy was so horrible!” But just think about for a moment, have you ever been so close to getting what you wanted to you started to seriously freak out? So much so that you spoiled it all and tore apart all your hard work so it wouldn’t lead to the success it deserved. So much so that you took a wrong turn and arrived late at an important date, too late to give your dream relationship a chance. So much so that you get physically sick each time you approach the doorstep happiness. You’d rather be sick and miserable than facing the fears you have crafted around the notion of happiness.

So it turns out some of us would rather give in to self-sabotage than taste the sweetness of happiness and joy. I mean, imagine if there is nothing beyond? If you realize it was all a fraud. Or if the people closest to you become green with envy and cut all ties with you. Or worst if everybody dies because of your careless pursuit of  happiness. It doesn’t matter how irrational the fear is. The fact is fear can keep you stuck within the same pattern for years and years.

That’s how when I arrived in Milagro, Ecuador in August of 2010 I saw plenty of occasions to prove my theory right. I was by no means to be happy. I was to suffer and serve. And these two undeniably went hand in hand.

And serve I did. And suffer I did as well.

I’m not saying some measure of suffering isn’t necessary for our growth. But what I’m talking here is a different kind of suffering altogether. It’s the kind that is born of self-righteousness, of the fear of not existing without our pain, of wanting a proof that we are “doing it right.” I suffer therefore my service must be valuable. It is the kind of suffering that will only bring you more pain. No growth or freedom whatsoever.

I’m not sure where the turning point came for me, maybe it was that one time when I almost died. Maybe it was more of a process that settled in my weary bones. Maybe it was God’s gracious answers to my midnight prayers.

But at some point it dawned on me that I was deeply confused about what it meant to serve, what it meant to be happy and the real point of life.

All this time (and I don’t mean just since August of 2010, but all these 32 years of my existence) I had been more eager to die than to live. I had made suffering the measure of my aliveness. And had sacrificed happiness at the altar of so-called selfless service.

The truth is that I was living my life backwards. I was dying a little more each day instead of living a little more each day. Sure, I was spiritually fulfilled but I was miserable on a human level. For the past few months I had  been waking up each day thinking: “I hate my life!”

I know many of us do that because that’s the only way we’ve learned. So there is no need to blame but just to accept and move on to learn a better way. In retrospect I can see all the ways in which life had been programming me for such a thinking. A murdered grandfather, a dead baby sister and a cousin risking prison for defending high humanitarian ideals sure had tainted my perception of a life of service. How can I be happy when others have died or risk dying serving the common values we believe in? Surely suffering must be the only way  to serve and honour their life.

Turns out we each get our own life. Our own challenges, our own capacity and and our own reward as well. And as much as I want to I can’t save anyone else by hiding into misery. No matter how much I love them and how powerful I’d like to think I am, I have no choice when it comes to their destiny. I only get to live my own life.

This one life is my chance to happy. My chance to serve. And in the best of cases, my chance to be happy serving. That answers a few of my questions about service, happiness and what truly matters in life.

I must say that I do not regret any of the decisions I made in the past. Living one year and a half in a small town with as many chickens as human beings was totally worth it. Waking up mornings in a row proclaiming that I hated my life made me really question what it was I needed in order to be happy. Serving in all the wrong ways and suffering for the wrong reasons eventually brought me to understand what service and life were all about.

And really, my dear, I want to tell you that life is too short to spend it dying away.

What I wish for you in the year to come and the many others  is to spend every day of life fully alive. To commit to being happy. To commit to being on purpose. And to know what it’s like to be happy when being on purpose.