Day 269. How I chose true happiness.

Us humans like shortcuts. We like to go from A to B the shortest possible way. We love to read books that helps us to realize things about life without the need to think it up all by ourselves. And we build robots that does the work for us. One could say that laziness is a hidden driving factor to a lot of our development. We do this even without thinking about it, like a subconscious process to optimize our well being.

When I try to explain why I let alcohol get to me the way it did for as long as it did it all comes down to this: I subconsciously chose alcohol as a shortcut to happiness. I didn’t decide to do it, I just let it happen over and over again. And I chose to neglect how much of a lie it is.

Alcohol is no shortcut to happiness, because happiness you haven’t earned you loan from
the future until you have run out of it. And at that point alcohol will instead be the express highway to anxiety.

I now feel that I’ve earned every piece of happiness that I feel. I can choose to feel it by seeing people I love or going for a run. But I will not try to reach happiness through a  chemical shortcut again because I know it will always come back with a vengeance. I will trade that subconscious shortcut to happiness for a conscious choice to let happiness come to me when I deserve it. Because only then will I experience true happiness.

Like going swimming with my daughter.

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