Chasing Rainbows

There's something about the first thought that you have in the morning. It might be super random and relate to the last thing you remember dreaming of -- such as "I don't think a meat cleaver is REALLY the best way to execute zombies" -- or it might be related to things you have to do during the course of the day  -- "Oh gracious, but I don't want to dial into that conference call today" or it might be something completely random, something that you need to know and have in your heart.

Something like, "I need to stop doing the things that don't make me happy."

Which was my first thought upon waking a couple of weeks ago.

Look, I know that there are some highly unenjoyable things that are required as part of regular life. Things like doctor's appointments and taxes and oil changes. They're necessary, and they probably don't bring you giant swooshes of joy in your heart. I'm not talking about those things.

I'm going to keep doing those.

But.

There are some other things -- things that I've been doing for years, things that I do without even thinking about them -- that may not make me totally miserable (though some of them do, let's be honest) -- but that don't make me happy and that directly contribute to unhappiness.

And that, my friends, strikes me as being incredibly dumb.

Large scale change is not the easiest thing to accomplish -- if it was, we'd all have incredibly lovely lives, wouldn't we? -- but perhaps it's not the hardest thing either. The tricky bit, I think, is believing that chasing after change, running after dreams, and reaching out for the thing that might make you really happy is something that you deserve. That you're important enough to be worthy of that which you would want.

That it's okay, in fact, to let go of the things that don't make you happy and take up the things that do.

Starting right now.