Why do we feel the need to protect ourselves from happiness?
We often run away from happiness because of guilt: of reaching our goals, our accomplishing our dreams. It is a very bizarre logic – we keep on striving to be happy and once we manage to achieve our goal we feel we don’t disserve it.
Actually, we wish to entertain an image of ourselves – as victims – and this in my eyes is just another way of being vain. We torture ourselves because we would like to be something we are not and this is why we turn away from happiness.
In my eyes, to be able to accept happiness is to forgive ourselves and accept ourselves as we truly are – not as we would wish ourselves to be. Acceptance and humility are the cornerstones of joy.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree with Alexandra. I don't feel the slightest wish to protect myself from happiness! I want to be happy and I want others to be happy too.I think the question is where we can find true happiness and I believe that we can find it in our own mind, that we cannot just wait for happiness to come to us but we have to make some effort to create it in our own mind.
So what you are saying Paulo is that we have to stop playing the role others want us to be, so that we can be authentic. I understand that. The reason why we might have a” panic attack – so that is when you have to do your home work and get rid of all the past “rubbish” , accepting yourself and just being.
Can people be intimidated by others because they remind them of past experiences? I am sure it has something to do with that as well. So you have to overcome that as well, remember that you are going onto an unknown zone and it makes you feel unsecure.
Love :)
My dearest all, thank you for your kind words.. Unfortunately we count the age of our bodies from the day we first breath in this world. Things follow their natural course and we are all together walking towards the Light. Of course I am not so old as my .. mother[who is 91 years old] or your granny, dear Alexandra!!;]
Life offers us many opportunities according to our ..age! Then we have duties and …bonds and responsibilities and.. all those things that tie us .. I am not complaining. Commitment, routine, time.. Then one day we wake up and realize that we are .. old, well middle aged, and the dreams we have are going to stay ..in the dream-spheres.
So I am telling you never to postpone or think that you have plenty of time.. Even if you do your duties with love, never forget your ‘own’ dreams .. Others may live with you, next to you but not many can … read your thoughts and look into your eyes and ask YOU, what do you want .. my love?? [Αγάπη μου!] as we Greeks say it so .. sweetly! ;]
LOVE,
Thelma.
“Le bonheur, je ne pourrai l’avoir que si je réussis à soulever le monde pour le faire entrer dans le vrai, dans le pur, dans l’immuable.”
Franz KAFKA 1883-1924
“Happiness, I can have it if I manage to raise the world to bring in the real, in the pure, the immutable.”
Franz Kafka 1883-1924
Querido Paulo,
Muito Obrigada…
MARG,
Ca
We are never old unless we feel like to be old.Thelma you aren’t old you’re the youngest person at heart.Continue to spread Love and you’ll never be old.Continue to Love and shall never be old.We continue to read you and spread it too and Love and we will never be old.”Old” doesn’t exist in “this world”!
Love
after reading ur comment i feel u r sso rite, but still when we forgive ourselves- and accept ourselves as we r- we sometimes still have to remember that in some places we should behave as IN ROME BEVAVE AS A ROMAN- and than we should do as the actor does in the theatre!!! and those special manners that we may be dont feel like doing that moment!!!
so i learnt during my life to play the game when it is nesesary!
A great quote for you Thelma from Bob Dylan
‘Ah I was so much older then,I am younger than that now…so’Enjoy ‘!!!
Thanks Pauolo for all the interesting challanges you gift us with daily on this wonderful blog-I am tired this evening and can’t go on !
Nite,
Love
Breda
Thelma-the beautiful black-haired Greek woman I met in Paris-you are ,healthy , articulate,sophicated-things age have not taken from you.
I am tired this evening and unable to write anymore,
Nite,
Love
Breda
Paulo
Your comment make me smile
Thank U
After struggling on and on – through
far to many years of my life
Im surprised and in awe for
Gods love for simplicity & happiness*
Yes
Your so right
forgiveness* acceptance & humility
Thelma… what in the world are you saying.. are you dead yet? no! ok then, stop saying those words. old and waste… I do not like!!
You are not old, Thelma. Than my 95 years granny what is?A mummy?
Is stuffed ? Please,dont feel hurt,just trying to cheer you up.Take care
Your statement is so true, dear Paulo Coelho. Many times in my life I have ‘caught’ my self finding excuses to run away from ..love and happiness! I was afraid of ..losing my integrity, of disappointing others, of being disappointed from my ..’dream’, of finding something that I would not be able to .. cope with. The safety of the Walls, but at the same time the loneliness of holding the feelings and sentiments well hidden and behind the ..Mask of ‘self-contentment’ and Egoism. The other day I found the quote from Rumi that made me ‘think’: Do not search for Love, but for the barriers inside your heart..
Do not misunderstand me. I almost ‘know’ now how to love unconditionally, but I am already .. old. What a .. waste! ;]
LOVE,
Thelma.
I did,indeed I did.
This is a beautiful explanation. Thanks Paulo.
If she’s a beautiful brunette, she envies the blonde. If she’s blonde, she wishes to be a redhead, with all those glorious freckles. If she’s shapely, she wants to be a stick. If she’s twiggy, she yearns for curves. If she’s flat-chested she’ll consider implants. If if she’s large-breasted and wants to do sports, she’ll curse the way God made her. In terms of our physical bodies, it seems we are never ever satisfied. No matter what attributes we have, we always want the opposite.
This is probably true, too, of many of our other skills and talents. If we spent half the time and effort on perfecting what God gave us that we spend complaining about what we do not have, we would be masters at what we were meant to be: we would surely achieve our Personal Destiny.
There is nothing under the sun that does not have a purpose in the grand scheme of things: even the rat, the mole, even the “lowly” earthworm. Each has a function, a purpose no less glorious than that of the lion, “king of beasts.” And just imagine what a mess the world would be if each was forever trying to perform the feats intended for the other! A road-ditch, trying to be a mighty river. A mountain aspiring to be a lush, green valley. The sky hoping to become a desert.
“I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
…
I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuff’d with the stuff that is coarse and stuff’d with the stuff
that is fine,
One of the Nation of many nations, the smallest the same and the
largest the same,
…
I resist any thing better than my own diversity,
Breathe the air but leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
(The moth and the fish-eggs are in their place,
The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in their
place,
The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its place.)
…
With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for
conquer’d and slain persons.
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit
in which they are won.
…
Vivas to those who have fail’d!
And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!
And to those themselves who sank in the sea!
And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!
And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes
known!
…
I know I am solid and sound,
To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,
All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.
I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenter’s compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacue cut with a burnt
stick at night.
…
I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten
million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
…
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with
me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
into new tongue.”
- from “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman
It is easy to be a victim: “Oh, poor me! I can’t become what I want to be, because I don’t have…” the right skill or talent. I can’t do what I would like to do in life, because I lack…” this or that opportunity or resource. I cannot achieve what I would like to achieve, because…” someone or something is standing in my way. “My path is not easy! My path is not clear! My obstacles are large and many! My mistakes are too numerous! It is too late!”
It takes a lot more courage to say, “I am what I am…and there is ALWAYS room for improvement.” It takes more courage to say this, because it takes the blame off of others, and places the responsibility back on us.
I have made a promise of great importance – a promise I cannot run away from. The obligation connected to this is more important than my happiness. It seems like my obligation and happiness are not compatible entities. Or maybe, if I follow the right path. But then I would be like you, but probably without the success…
I agree with Alexandra. I don’t feel the slightest wish to protect myself from happiness! I want to be happy and I want others to be happy too.I think the question is where we can find true happiness and I believe that we can find it in our own mind, that we cannot just wait for happiness to come to us but we have to make some effort to create it in our own mind.
Free people don’t do that.
We? I dont feel that I want to protect myself from happiness. I am generally a very optimistic person, everybody likes the fact that I always laugh. The sort of person who pose in an eternal victim just makes me feel tired and bored.Many times I have troubles, problems, but I am also a proud person, and I avoid to bother everybody with my problems. Thats why I cant understand the “eternal victims”.Well,I guess in that respect I am as kids, children are happy with so little.
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