Confessions of a HAPPY DRUG Addict

One of the most difficult points to really be self-honest with in this world is the illusion of happiness and the idea that apparently when we feel happy, then things are alright in the world, and as long as we can even for a moment experience ourselves within that state of 'happiness' – all is justified, and all that matters, even for those brief moments, is our own experience of happiness.

One way to look at the point of 'happiness' is to see it as a drug – a highly addictive drug that is nearly impossible to regulate or control, with effects so intoxicating that it completely overrides a person's ability to direct or control themselves – a drug that replaces actual expression and joy with a false euphoria that can only exist in an altered state of mind detached from reality.

I remember when I first started the job that I am working at now, which was during a time when I was going through some changes in my life and facing a point of depression in which I experienced myself as very unhappy and generally disappointed in myself and in my life and felt that everything had 'gone to shit' – my initial thoughts were only of how much I hated my work – how much I missed being able to do other things with my time and not have to deal with the problems and issues and conflicts that I now had to face at work which seemed all the more complex and exhausting due to my own internal conflicts and frictions and 'unhappiness'.

Each day I would begrudgingly drag myself to work and constantly remind myself of how unhappy I was – how 'tired of it all' I felt – and how angry I was at everything and everyone because I was in a position where everything that I trusted and believed in basically fell apart – and the things that were a part of my life that would make me 'happy' – the things that would give me that energetic 'high' in order to 'get me through the day' and continue coping with the problems that I have been holding on to and suppressing throughout my life were suddenly no longer available to me – and for a while all I could think about was how to be happy again – what I had to do in order to be happy again – because I did not want to be where I was – and believed that my unhappiness was a result of the place I was working, the job that I was doing, and the living situation that I was in.

I would spend my time at work NOT getting to know my coworkers or getting to know who they are or how it is that they ended up doing this kind of work. I did NOT spend my time getting to know my job and the details that come with it and the various dimensions and points involved in such a business. I did NOT make the effort to better myself within what my job required me to do. I did NOT want to push myself and make/develop relationships with customers and clients because to me, this 'job' was in the way of my happiness, and I did not intend on staying at this job any longer than I had to – because I was so 'unhappy'. And since nothing in my world was making me 'happy' I took it as a 'sign' that I needed to change everything in my world – I need to go elsewhere – to do 'something else'

So for quite a while I was pretty miserable at my new job, my new environment, my new 'life' after my previous 'life' had suddenly changed, and in that shock I was exposed to dimensions of myself that I had resisted and suppressed for many many years of my life – and the way that I was able to keep it all suppressed was through relationships and entertainment that would keep me HAPPY – yes – that all addictive drug of HAPPINESS that would allow me to cope with and 'put up with' all manner of conflicts and dishonesty within myself

So within my desire to be happy again and seeing that nothing in my world at the time was making me happy, I allowed myself to listen to the logic of my mind and convinced myself that I was simply in the 'wrong place' and working with the 'wrong people' and doing the 'wrong thing' in my life, and thus would only 'put up with' the conflicts that I experienced at home, at work, and within myself in general – reasoning that eventually I will find the thing that will make me happy again – that eventually I will get another 'hit' of that happiness drug that would allow me to once again 'function' within this messed up world. All that mattered was me doing whatever is required to eventually, somehow, be 'happy' again.

The result was that the conflicts within myself never went away. I became more and more 'unhappy' and my relationship with everything and everyone in my world, including myself, and blamed everything and everyone for being in the way of my happiness – which obviously made things only more difficult because each day I would still have to work my job and be around the same conflicts and the same people – the whole time NOT taking self-responsibility for myself or allowing myself to consider what is actually going on and finding a way to get to know my environment and work with it as an equal instead of being the happiness addict that was hell bent on doing whatever it took and willing to throw anything and anyone under the bus in order to get to my 'happiness' because I did not trust myself to stand in situations that would bring up the things that I resisted and suppressed throughout my life.

It was after a while of doing this and realizing that my life was NOT getting any better and that all the time and energy that I had spent on trying to figure out what I need to do, where I need to go, who I need to work with, what I need to have in place in my life and in my environment in order to be happy again and be okay with myself again was in fact preventing me and blinding me to just how far I had allowed my addiction to 'happiness' blind me from seeing the actual reality of what is here, and how I am responsible at all times for what I am experiencing and creating in my world.

It was only after pushing myself to let go of my wants, my moral judgments, my personal preferences, and my belief that I require something in order to make me happy so that I can function and be 'okay' in this world, that I was able to really slow down and see what I was doing to myself, and what I was doing to people in my life – how I had isolated myself from everything and everyone and missed in all of those moments the opportunity to get to know the people – get to understand the nature of my job and why things require to be done a certain way because of the multiple dimensions and factors that are involved in the current market and economic system we need to survive within – and see that no amount of 'happiness' could ever make me a 'better person' or help me to be somebody that is 'better equipped' to deal with and face the problems of this world – that the only way to have a REAL life of actual enjoyment and fulfillment and expression is to change who we are firstly in our relationship to ourselves – to let go our personal fears and self-interests – so that we can SEE clearly what is going on in this world and why so many people seem lost and unhappy – and how it is that we have allowed ourselves to become slaves to chasing the idea of 'happiness' instead of looking at practical ways to solve and correct the issues of our world and our relationships.

So here I have shared a bit of context in terms of what I have walked and seen within the point of losing myself within the addiction to happiness and believing that happiness is in any way real or valid if it produces people who become detached from reality, detached from actual intimacy and communication, detached from actual self-responsibility.

What follows is self-forgiveness within the points that I have seen and walked -

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to NOT see that when I make happiness my starting point for doing anything, I will always end up disappointed and the point will not be sustainable because happiness in itself is not real, and is only based on the idea that something outside of myself can make me happy and generate experiences of happiness and enjoyment and positivity which directly contradict the actual physical REALITY of the world we live in – the world in which billions of people are living at the brink of poverty and the world itself is busy self-destructing due to the relationships we have established in this world – where all that matters is profit and happiness for those who can afford and thus abuse the resources of this planet – addicted to happiness and self-interest and completely blinded to the actual cost of this addiction.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place any value within the idea of personal 'happiness' in a world in which billions daily must fight for mere survival and to deliberately blind myself to the direct cost of 'happiness' as it relates to the current economic system of the world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become addicted to happiness and the ability to ignore and turn away from the reality of this world in order to satisfy my own preferences and self-interest and personal experiences and thus isolate myself from actually being able to see and understand this world and the people within it and the consequences of the relationships we establish in the pursuit of 'happiness' and self-interest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if I do not feel 'happy' then it is because my environment and the people within it are not making me happy and thus they are to blame, and to then use this mind-logic to justify NOT being self-honest or living the courage to let go of my personal opinions and judgments so that I can stand no matter where I am, who I am with, or what I require to do within the current system – to trust myself and know myself so intimately that there is no fear of 'losing myself' or needing to cope with my fears and resistances – to be able to stand in the shoes of anyone, anywhere, and still do what is best for all within that context – to STOP judging and condemning others or the conditions of others without first letting go of the idea/belief that I apparently know what is best based only on my own preferences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to resistances and separate myself from what is here – and to miss the point that no matter where I am, who I am with, what I require to do within that context in order to survive and support myself – I am ALWAYS facing the same point – the same responsibility – and that is to STOP the mind and stand as the position that I am in, and do as LIFE would do – to find a way to do whatever is necessary to be done, taking my specific context into consideration, in a way that is best for all – whether this means I work with people that I have judged, or doing things that I had deemed to be 'unethical' or 'bad', or having to let go of my idea about myself and my fixation and addiction to being 'happy', so that instead of looking elsewhere for that which will make me stable and content, I stand as stability and contentment and accept nothing less than what is best for all.

I commit myself to STOP chasing happiness as the drug that blinds me from doing what is necessary to be done and facing what is necessary to be faced in order to bring about a change within myself, my relationship with this world, and thus my contribution to this world – to show that a life of contentment and fulfillment is in fact possible for each one, and to PROVE this by no longer pushing people away or fearing to 'lose myself' if I unconditionally stand one and equal with what is here – to know every bit of this world as intimately as I would know my own self – and from there to direct my world within actual intimacy, understanding, and consideration instead of trying to mold and shape and bend this world into a picture of what I think equality and 'best for all' should be in order to just make myself happy.