Anger is a Gift
How do we find happiness within ourselves? Is it a feeling or an action that drives our joy? What if suffering is the byproduct of how we are supposed to learn how to feel? These are all questions I have in my head, unlocking the flood gates of words rushing into my magic hat of creativity. Maybe this is more of a profound question for myself to answer, as this is my human experience and realistically, I’m the one who labels these answers as wrong or right.
I have the ears, eyes, and a nose to take in the scenery around me; walls painted white, the sliver matching refrigerator and gas-lit stove with the Mr. Coffee machine that brings a taste of bitterness with a sweet smell in the air of a light roast coffee bean from Ethiopia. It sits by the tile wall next to the canvas of a sunset beautifully painted with bursting colors of teal-blue, orange and reds with blemishes of brown from the white used to lighten the transition between the horizon line and ocean covered with strokes of blue. It’s leaned up against the window seal, showcasing the city lights scattered across the hill breaking up the nighttime darkness. And it’s the sound of the humming from the heater that keeps the house warm while my wife and kids sleep silently above me.
Maybe suffering is unrealistic and non-existing due to the comforts all around me and if you are reading this, stop and take in the sights, sounds, smells, as I just did sitting in my kitchen. Individuals like me need a recalibration that builds a healthy relationship of adversity that balance’s out the brain chemistry. I’ve worked so gracefully hard to find, with buckets of grit, a healthier headspace of control compared to years before. Happiness comes with an inheritance. Think about it, how many times do we ask for things in our life, and it shows up out of nowhere, or you are expecting one thing, and then the complete opposite happens? Everyone has their inheritance, be proud of that, avoid jealously of others, and don’t envy your inheritance of life. It is what we all asked for in some capacity. Celebrate it and self-endorse your legacy; no one else will.
Life is the marriage of opposite’s driving love to act as a statement or valor system when love is a word created thousands of years ago to express a deep and tender feeling of affection, attachment, or devotion to a person or persons. But, let that person be you. So, where does suffering drive from in all of this? A search for happiness comes with no roadmap and not found in any self-guide books, and to be honest, to feel hurts and is painful. I am happy that suffering is showing its face inside of me lately, to remind me of my dark passenger who will always be right here, never gone, deep in caves of my heart, lurking in the shadows avoiding the light. This nothingness sucks the magic to feel from me and the world around me, turning me into a statue of stone to be amused. Contrast exists for a reason, and it can be a state of being close in association, or at the same time, strikingly different.
The same goes for happiness and suffering, with there being no right or wrong way to be happy, but to love the world inside you because happiness is an action. Happiness can be found everywhere inside the body we breathe from and deep inside those caves of suffering. With these words blossoms, yet another question, how does one be happy about their suffering? I hadn’t thought about it till now, but here is what I believe from my gut- to be happy, you must realize, recognize, and react when the dark passenger inside of you stalks your soul like a serial killer in the night. The answer for me in all this is to continue to feel. When the emptiness shows his face, the actionable step is to shove my happiness so far down suffering’s throat that the dark passenger or the dragon inside of me knows who the authority is at all times.
