Happiness

Happiness, felicity (state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy),  (emotions experienced when in a state of well-being).  I touched on this earlier in the week.

There are some words used in Freemasonry.  They exhort us to be happy and communicate happiness from generation to generation (it is part of a much bigger narrative and hence I've paraphrased it a bit).

I've not been 'happy' for a very long time, not joyful or content.  Not that I've experienced anything in the opposite end apart from the horrible depressions and times of the Black Dog now, hopefully, a thing of the distant black past.  I liken it to going to Mordor in Lord of the Rings.  A really dark and fearful place inhabited by creatures willing only to keep you there or drag you down to their level.  I'm past that horrible stuff but am I happy with well, me?

Even though I've been better and felt much better than when I was ill etc I can't actually claim to have ever reached a state of happiness or contentment.  Probably on the way, beginning to feel better and so on but I've never got back to a contented state of mind.  It's only been this past week where things have diametrically changed for me.  I'm on my way to being really happy and contented and whilst I'm not there yet it has taken years of faffing around and missed opportunities, wrong avenues, hard knocks and loss of general direction and control. 

The sweeping landscape of emotions have been explored ad nauseum and I've gone up the peaks and into the valleys experiencing the highs and lows and for what?  If there's no payoff in the future no goal no horizon then what are you doing it for?  There's been no strategy at all no wanting to get somewhere other than to be well again.  There have been a few tactical moves - getting a bolthole job when I was recovering and having treatment.  It wasn't me and there was the terrible mistake of trying to get into a high impact business when the damn thing never existed.  I'm very proud of our last venture though, if anything should have been funded for is societal impact it should be what we produced.  Failure (if that is what you understand as a measure) was always an option disappointing as it was we should be very proud that we professionally knew exactly when to call it a day.  That effort would have changed things around the world for the most disadvantaged members of the human race.  Naively I felt that it would be something that could be picked up for good however, there's lots of mileage in suppressing half the world - that's the way of it - I can't do anything about it even if I wanted to.

So the Bladder Cancer Journey has many roads and ways you can go but I've been like a rudderless ship without direction, no compass and no goal set.

I set the early on goal - surviving and battling (although never sure I liked that word) and then I was better.  Then there was the fallout (depression and fatigue - just like you've fought a battle of your life) and maybe just maybe at that point it was all about tactics, move from one short goal to the next one.  I should know better - what do I do for a living?  I'm a Business and IT Program Manager FFS!  But then it is often so that a Plumber's House is always in need of some pipework being finished or a tap washer changed :-)  I've been looking down at my feet all this time and not up at the horizon.  

This week has all been about this revelation to me - not to others I suppose.  Where do you want to get to?  Setting the vision is actually the important thing. How you get there is what I'm wrestling with now as I do feel that there is no chance of getting to the goal without hurting someone.  Something that I do is bound to hurt someone somewhere.  I care a lot about not hurting others but at some point in time I need to do what is right for me.  What on earth was the point of surviving cancer if at the end of it you don't enjoy it, you don't take advantage of the second chance you've got.  Many, many people didn't get the opportunity to have that choice did they?  

So as things unravel here and I disassemble and reassemble them we will see what on earth comes along.  At once I felt that things are going to wonderful for me, something great is coming along, I will be lifted out of the doldrums of the past 7 years and find some purpose and some reason to finally pick myself up and rebuild my life.  You can put up loads of things as that horizon point, you can want wealth, power and you can yearn for material things me? Me, all I want is to enjoy my life and feel that it has all been worthwhile that the period of illness is behind me, that I can get on with my life and that life isn't any reflection on my past life of all work, high stress and all that stuff.  I keep coming back to my argument which is - Why shouldn't I be able to be happy and approach a state of happiness surely after 7 years I've earnt it?