A long, long time ago and very far away, in the land of ‘If-and-when’ there lived a young woman. As was the habit of all the residents of this land, our girl too would be heard telling herself, ‘I will be happy if………..’ or ‘My heart will overflow with joy when……….’ You can only imagine how sad the people of this land were. They didn’t enjoy the beauty of Nature around them, or appreciate the love in their life. They took all their blessings for granted. In fact, they more or less put their lives on hold while they waited for those events they thought would make them happy and joyful.
This girl took things a little further. Whenever, she accidentally had a happy moment or an enjoyable experience, she would be quick to tell herself, “This isn’t going to last, so you better not get used to it.” She, like Charlie Brown, was afraid to be happy. She’d always make herself think dark thoughts, so that when bad things happened, she’d be prepared for them.
Very soon bad things did start to happen to her – she hadn’t realized how powerful self-fulfilling prophecies were. It wasn’t until she fell into a dark pit of despair and discouragement, that she realized that this was no way to live. A new way of thinking and living was what she needed.
She looked inside herself and found that there were indeed things about herself she could be happy about. She looked around the world and found that there was so much beauty in it. So much to enjoy, so many things to laugh about, and endless things to be grateful for.
She moved out of the land of ‘If-and-when’ and decided to move to the land of ‘The-present-moment’. In this land, live people who have learned to find pleasure in little things, who don’t miss out on the Now in a pursuit of extraordinary things. They take pleasure in a puppy’s antics, laugh at their own idiosyncrasies, enjoy every lick of ice-cream and are grateful for all they have at this very moment.
And our not-so-young-woman-anymore lives there now, happy to share her experiences and hopeful that others too will move to this land of joy!
“Joy comes to us in ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary” – Brené Brown
Today I’m adding responding the #FridayReflections Brené Brown quote prompt.
I’m also responding to the Finish The Sentence Friday prompt “A long, long time ago and very far away, there lived…” hosted by Kristi from Finding Ninee and this week’s sentence thinker-upper, Deborah Lovel Bryner from Life is Like a Hand Grenade.
I love this! I’m so glad you linked it up with Finish the Sentence Friday. It really is true isn’t it – the joy we seek is already here. We just have to embrace it.
That is such a beautiful thought!! Simple yet so often we forget. 🙂
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Every now and then I have this insane craving to be this girl. I guess I am going to take a lot more time to reach here. Your post though and knowing this girl is you in many ways, calmed me down..
Corinne, can I tell you I am that girl, exactly. As a school going child, I used to consider myself unlucky because I had to prepare essays for all the topics given for the exams in hindi and English because I was sure which ever topic I would have left, only that one would have come in the question paper. On the other hand, my brother who was happy-go-lucky would prepare just one topic out of all and each time only that essay topic came in his question paper which he prepared. The hindi idioms like ‘Chaar din ki chandni phir andherj raat’ provided more negativity and made me question about the value of one’s life if it has to be this bad. Now that I practice gratitude and positive thinking, I feel grateful for the good old school days of preparing too many essays for serving to be my foundation years for practising writing and making me hardworking.
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Perfect story telling… Had fun reading it. A strong message hidden. Thanks for sharing Corinne.
Lovely. I think we have all been there in some form and when we figured out that happiness was in our control without any ifs, when etc. life became simpler and better.
My problem is thinking that such a good time will not come again. Kinda similar but that makes me think if future will not be as happy. 😉
Loved reading your post.
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There are those bad times, normal times, and good times in life. If we look positively, we can instead categorize them as not-so-good times, good times and really good times. And whenever I’m in the third time, I have this fear that it will all end too soon, and start thinking of what bad times might come ahead. Well I ought to now move to the land of the ‘Present-moment’ like the girl has.
Thanks for the boost 🙂
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You know that I am trying to live in the joy of my life right now. I constantly tell myself that it’s not going to last. My husband sees and senses it. This post came at a perfect time.
So beautiful and profound! There were/are times when I think like the girl in the if-and-when land but life is too short to wait for if-and-when, I know that now. Happiness that comes from little moments are always a boost. Honestly, I can’t trade my little moments of joy for anything!
For the past few weeks, I have been beating myself about how badly I’m doing in life…I was feeling very low considering the things I thought I would have done as against what I have ..Even now..But yes I’m just been blind to all the good things around me that I can be happy for..This post just reminded me of that..
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I have been the queen of the land thar you described. Now I have renounced my claims to the throne, but I am a frequent visiter to that land. Old habits die hard!
I’ve moved to the land of the present moment too and I’m loving living here – so many little moments to savour and enjoy x
Glad you’ve moved too, Leanne. Life is so much better for it, is it not?
I think I need to move to the land of Present Moment but I’m stuck in If and When :S Nice way to weave the message in this story Corinne!
I was like that too earlier. Slowly changing to the present land and enjoying the positivity
I am learning to live in the present too. Such a nice story tied to a profound discussion 🙂