By Ava Simone
Waking up to the sun filtering through my bedroom window. I lay in my bed – still and quiet – listening to the birds who had begun their daily chorus. This was happiness for me. Shortly afterward, I made my way to the kitchen for my morning cup of coffee to take with me as I sat outside on my balcony. The smell of rain fromthe night before still clung to the air as the warm morning breeze swept through. This was happiness for me. As I’m now in my 60’s, I have come to realize a couple of things about happiness, at least in my life and my experience. These realizations have allowed me freedom and the ability to be present in the moment. I have discovered that happiness is not a constant state of being. It is not like an endlessly flowing river that stretches as far as the eye can see. Instead, happiness comes in flurries, stages, minutes and moments.
I was happy during a recent solo trip to Florida, where I spent an entire day at the beach enjoying the feel of warmsandandsalt water beneath my feet as I walked the shoreline gathering seashells. I was happy when my busy adult daughters and I made plans to attend a concert together next month. That’s always happiness to me when I get to hang out with both of them! I wasn’t happy, however, when my internet went down for several hours while I was working on a project. But, I was happy again when it finally came back up. You get the picture?
We have been conditioned to think that if we’re not happy all of the time, then something is wrong in our lives. Have we failed in some way? Been cheated or short- changed in life? Maybe in some cases, but not all. Most times it’s just life doing what it does. Nothing is constant in life. Everything changes, just like the hands on a clock or the Wheel of Fortune card in the tarot, up one minute, down the next. Happiness is no exception, and once we realize that, it almost feels like a burden is lifted. It’s okay to not be happy OR sad. Sometimes we just feel somewhere in between, and that’s not a bad place to be. That in between time is often quiet and reflective, at least in myworld it is.
The other important lesson I’ve learned about happiness is that it is my birthright to be happy and I deserve to be! I do not have to earn my way to happiness by achieving a certain goal, earning a certain income, being married, having children, being a certain weight, owning a house, being an entrepreneur, or whatever else we’re conditioned to believe that happiness is.
I don’t even have to do good deeds everyday or even every month, and I still deserve to be happy. Happiness is not a reward that we get in exchange for doing something, although that is the case many times. I have come to discover that true happiness can be found all around me without “earning” or chasing it. It also helps to redefine what our ideas of happiness look like. So, on that wonderfully ordinary morning that I sat with my cup of coffee on my small balcony and inhaled the remnants of the rain and listened to the birds welcome a new day, well, I hadn’t done anything except wake up. I didn’t have to chase it, I hadn’t done anything to “earn” it, but happiness still just met me right where I was, and I was thankful for it.
Ava is an intuitive tarot and oracle reader, a freelance writer, a personal blogger, and the former Editor-in-Chief and Celebrity Correspondent of Trendsetters to Trendsetters Magazine in Atlanta.
She is also a former contributing community columnist with the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. A native New Yorker, Ava now resides just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. The mother of two of the best adult humans on the planet, she also enjoys a cup of coffee with the sunrise and a glass of Merlot with the stars and the ocean anytime. You can find out more about Ava’s tarot practice and services at souljourneytarot.com To read more articles on her blog, visit www.avaonpurpose.com. To read some of her most fulfilling celebrity interviews during her work with T2T Magazine, visit: www.clippings.me/users/avasimone