It wasn't very tall, but it had a good level of age on it. The way the branches spread out from the base made it a perfect place for me to sit. I would love to say I climbed the tree, but the truth is, I didn't. I climbed the rock fence in front of the tree, stood on top of the fence, and basically just pulled myself up into the tree. I would sometimes venture onto one of the limbs, but usually I didn't. I was content to just sit on the trunk and play my little games.
You know, it seems a lot of time in our society, we push towards finding pleasure and happiness as a reward for accomplishing something. "I won the race, so I can be happy now." "I got the good job, so I can be happy now." It's like we feel that we can only find pleasure at the END of something, and only then if it was something we worked on and not only achieved, but achieved better than others. This is a fairly twisted way to view happiness.
I won't say I'm horrible at playing my flute, but I'm certainly not good at it either. Yet, when I play, I have a great deal of happiness in the process. I love making the music and learning new songs. As I've mentioned before, I'm not the best knitter in the world, in fact quite often I'm baffled by the process. And yet, I find a great deal of pleasure in knitting. I love what I create, even if most of it looks awkward and kinda bad.
As kids, before we get brainwashed with all the society crap, we intuitively understand that happiness doesn't happen as a reward for vast accomplishments. Happiness just happens because we allow ourselves to be IN THE MOMENT of the happiness. I didn't get to enjoy the tree because I was a super climber who reached some amazing height. I enjoyed the tree because trees are awesome, no matter how lame of a climber I was.
You know, I usually don't engage or challenge my readers, but I am going to on this occasion. I challenge you to allow yourself to be happy, just because happiness is there in abundance to be had. Savor an ice cream. Pet some fuzzy animal. Think about your favorite story. Look at something beautiful. Recall a great memory from your childhood. Just . . . be happy. Let yourself. Don't limit your own happiness by placing conditions on it. That isn't really the way happiness works and it's really not fair to you.
You know, it seems a lot of time in our society, we push towards finding pleasure and happiness as a reward for accomplishing something. "I won the race, so I can be happy now." "I got the good job, so I can be happy now." It's like we feel that we can only find pleasure at the END of something, and only then if it was something we worked on and not only achieved, but achieved better than others. This is a fairly twisted way to view happiness.
I won't say I'm horrible at playing my flute, but I'm certainly not good at it either. Yet, when I play, I have a great deal of happiness in the process. I love making the music and learning new songs. As I've mentioned before, I'm not the best knitter in the world, in fact quite often I'm baffled by the process. And yet, I find a great deal of pleasure in knitting. I love what I create, even if most of it looks awkward and kinda bad.
As kids, before we get brainwashed with all the society crap, we intuitively understand that happiness doesn't happen as a reward for vast accomplishments. Happiness just happens because we allow ourselves to be IN THE MOMENT of the happiness. I didn't get to enjoy the tree because I was a super climber who reached some amazing height. I enjoyed the tree because trees are awesome, no matter how lame of a climber I was.
You know, I usually don't engage or challenge my readers, but I am going to on this occasion. I challenge you to allow yourself to be happy, just because happiness is there in abundance to be had. Savor an ice cream. Pet some fuzzy animal. Think about your favorite story. Look at something beautiful. Recall a great memory from your childhood. Just . . . be happy. Let yourself. Don't limit your own happiness by placing conditions on it. That isn't really the way happiness works and it's really not fair to you.
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