Happiness Maintenance

Have you ever heard someone say the phrase, “I’m afraid of success?”  Well it’s baloney.  It’s not success people are afraid of, because to achieve success and to maintain success are 2 different goals entirely.  What we really fear is the loss of energy.  When we take inspired action, we transform potential energy into kinetic energy.  And that kinetic energy eventually gets burned up. 

I haven’t really tried to lose weight since giving birth 8 months ago.  Oh I’ve moaned and groaned about it with a fair amount of self-loathing.  But I haven’t made a sincere effort to start an exercise routine or change my diet.  In not doing so, I held onto the potential of having any body I wanted.  Yes, some of it was fear of failure or of it being harder than I thought.  But I also knew that once I reached my target weight, I’d have to maintain it.  This meant long-term lifestyle changes.  And what if, somewhere down the road, I stop and gain the weight back?  Even if it’s 20 years from now, was it all a failure?  In other words, where can I possibly get the energy to keep doing this?

The truth is that I don’t know.  I want to say something like the Source, God, the Divine.  But I don’t know the future.  I can say I believe.  I believe that calling on the help of or tapping into the Divine will always be a source of great energy.  That’s just me though.  I know not everybody thinks or feels that way.

Then I thought, what if we shifted within?  Instead of having goals with an end date, something limited and finite, what if we broadened our perspective?  My goals in life used to be getting a job as a teacher, writing a book, and taking at least one vacation every year.  More and more my goals are becoming to be happy, to love my family through my actions as well as my words and feelings, and to feel fulfilled.

Will it work?  It seems to be so far.  Overall, I’m more content.  Sure I like to dream about having a bigger house with a big, warm kitchen.  But ask me at any given moment, and I’ll usually say I’m happy and am creating happy memories daily.  Instead of experiencing the happiness of reaching success in pops and sizzles surrounding moments of achievement, I experience it steadily.  And that goes a long way toward energizing me.  What energizes you?