Life by the Moment

I am not exactly an extremely happy person. In fact, for a psychology class, I had to take a personality inventory which told me I am a mostly unhappy individual, which I think is going a little far. As I have mentioned in a previous post I believe that people can be both happy and sad at the same time and even about the same topic. However, I will admit that I tend to be sadder than the average person. I honestly can't remember a time when I wasn't sad and I doubt there will ever be a day when I won't be sad. This might sound extremely cynical and I'm not sure whether I should be so accepting of it, but it has simply been the reality of my life; joy is a loud emotion that is foreign and excitement has always been muted and that just the way it has always been.

There have been times in my life when this sadness has just seemed to take over, and I can’t help but see my life through a fog of unhappiness. It seems as though my life both in the past, present, and future is just bleak and meaningless. I wanted to feel happiness, most people want to be happy, but it just seemed as though my entire life was empty. I became so hung up on all the times I was sad in my life and trying to compare it to the times I was happy and no matter what I did it seemed as though the scale fell towards sadness. I figured that this meant I was supposed to be sad and that my life was sad and that was that.

After I graduated this past spring I had a long summer, during which I had way too much free time while I was looking for a job and an internship.  I spent a lot of time thinking and contemplating everything in my life–perhaps even too much time– and I had a few epiphanies. One of these epiphanies was that life isn’t about a balance about good and bad things, I can pile up the good memories and all the bad memories and that doesn’t give me the sum of my life. Life is about the moments, the good and the bad, and I can find happiness in each of them in some way. Sometimes, little things that seem so insignificant are what life is about, it is about finally seeing that movie you’ve really wanted to see, about a fun night out with friends, about a compliment from a stranger, eating Ice-cream with a loved one, and nights standing outside staring up at the stars. It’s the feeling of someone holding you as you cry your heart out, the feeling of outrage at injustice, and it is the bitter-sweet pain of sharing memories of someone lost. Moments are what make life worthwhile, both happy moments and moments that aren’t exactly happy. I can look back on my life and every moment that it is made up of and feel complete, maybe it isn’t exactly happiness, or maybe its better than happiness.