Be happy now, because you take yourself with you wherever you go.
It sounds like some Chinese proverb no one really understands. Of course I take myself with me, where else would I go? As I sit here fantasizing about the many exciting roads unfolding before me, I feel the truth of these words.
There was a time in my life when I felt quite disempowered and looked to a future that would deliver me from the sadness I was feeling. At one point I naively thought a new house was going to ease my pain.
First of all, a new house was a status symbol. If we had a new house that meant we had money, and having more money would feel more safe and more secure to me.
A new house meant having room to move around and spread out. There would be comfortable spaces for all of us where we could relax and unwind. I could almost feel and touch the crafts and projects I would create, once we bought this new house.
And having a new house felt important. It made us important and it made me important. I could see us doing important things like decorating or entertaining. People would laugh and smile and enjoy this wonderful new home with us, and we’d be happy.
I fantasized about this new house every day, especially when I was feeling down. If I felt unloved and unappreciated, I imagined my family loving and adoring me in my new house.
If I felt jealous of someone else’s success, I saw my own success once I’d gotten my new house.
No matter what negative emotion I was feeling, I saw its positive resolution with the coming of my magnificent new house. And in all that fantasizing and daydreaming I did nothing to change what was going on inside me emotionally. I handed over my ability to find happiness to the four walls of an inanimate object.
And what happened? We bought our house and for awhile I felt better. At times I even felt all those things I’d dreamed about! I did feel important, loved, respected, safe and secure. But in the end, the changing of the house did not change anything inside me. It didn’t matter how much money we spent, what we did or where we lived, I took me – the unhappy, broken and fearful parts of me – with me.
If you want something better in your life, fantasize away! Dream your dreams and get as clear as possible about what you want. But unless you do some changing, you will be the same person then that you are now. If you don’t do something to heal the sadness you feel now, it will almost certainly follow, recreating whatever you don’t like about your life now. Because no matter where you go, how much money you spend, or how far you run, you’ll always take yourself with you.