One of the keys to being happy is to be truthful with yourself. If you can not be truthful with yourself, how can you expect to be happy? Being truthful with yourself is hard at first, yet anyone can do it, and everyone can find themselves happier with their life by learning to be truthful with themselves.
If you think you are truthful with yourself, try a little experiment. Think about something that someone has mentioned to you about you that you know is a an area in your life that could use some type of change.
When someone mentioned this to you, how did it make you feel? If it makes you feel angry, it is likely something in your life you are ignoring. If you are ignoring this, and you were aware of it before it was mentioned to you, you are not being honest with yourself. If you are not honest with yourself, how can you expect to be deep down happy?
It is not easy being honest with yourself. It takes courage and it takes some amount of work at times. A simple example is someone who you feel drinks too much, or gambles too much. What you observe about them, and what they perceive about themselves are usually very different.
For most of us, being happy, is nothing so dramatic as admitting we have an addiction or other problem. It is generally more subtle, because we do not make the connection between one action and another consequence.
For example my really losing weight instead of pretending to. I found out a lot about my thinking about food and eating habits when I seriously decided I wanted to lose weight. Up until that moment I knew I should lose weight, but never followed through. I would have these thoughts as I was at a buffet having a second desert after a second helping. It was easy to justify my actions telling myself I would eat less over the next few days to make up for this meal where I ate too much.
In this situation it was impossible to be happy with myself, and the contradiction I placed myself in. Yet for many years it was the norm for me. It was not until I came to terms with what I was doing, that I found happiness in this area of my life.
Another example from my life is my post, Dark Night of the Soul. I lived for decades being miserable because I refused to accept what I was and who I am because it did not fit into my definition of what I thought I should be. More to the point, I let my ego run my life, and I followed along in the distance. Of course if we let our ego decide who and what we are it will never match reality. Having our own idea of who and what we are is a side effect of ego.
Of course these are major life events, they are also good examples of how we let ourselves get in the way of our being happy. Happiness is not a switch we turn on and turn off, at least for most of us. Many of us have to struggle. Going to a lake and watching people is a good example of how we get in the way of our own happiness.
A good written picture I read recently to clarify my thoughts: There are two groups of people present, those people standing or sitting along the shore and those in people on the water in boats. Due to our nature, the people on the shore are thinking about how nice it would be to be in a boat floating or moving slowly along the on the lake. The people in the boats think about how nice it would be to be on shore, be able to stand up and stretch, or even lay down on a blanket and take a nap.
When we spend our time living our lives in one of these two groups, no matter what our personal situation, it is a real limiter to our being happy. Be aware and do not let yourself get caught up in what you are not, or can not do or be, your personal happiness is at stake.
