The Happy Way

After complaining for a couple of weeks, I finally figured out that, like drugs, it really doesn’t help and people just get annoyed at you. It feels good while it’s happening, but the goal is not achieved.

Artie likes to tell our children that he can choose the happy way or the sad way. Sometimes I think that choosing the happy way can’t possibly get you what you want. It will be fake, or short-lasting.

But I think that frame of mind is not helpful. The point is to kind of stay in the happy way, not choose it just because it leads to this pile of gold. It’s the journey man.

Fine to say, but while in the thick of it, hard to remember.

While in the thick of it, visions of broken dreams cross my mind. I always wondered why bands, companies, lovers, broke up as it seemed such a shame and so preventable. I used to tell myself that they should know to just stick through the tough times, I mean come on, people.

But I guess they were all whiny a-holes like me. Sending out negativity, justified in their blah blah blah, letting their perception guide them rather than reality and not staying flexible lead you down the road of the sad way.

I ran across this quote that said that the harder one works, the more opportunities come your way. IThen there was this other quote:

“Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself, can spare time for personal contention. Still less can he afford to take all the consequences, including the vitiating of his temper, and the loss of self-control. Yield larger things to which you can show no more than equal right; and yield lesser ones, though clearly your own. Better give your path to a dog, than be bitten by him in contesting for the right. Even killing the dog would not cure the bite.”
Abraham Lincoln

So there you go. He takes out all the reason to complain. Sending out cold pricklies gets you nowhere and is a waste of time. The only thing to do is move forward and do things over which you have control and responsibility. The possible silver lining is that opportunities will come your way.

This leads us to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, which others tell me is just one way to look at it, but I like this particular way. I like the idea of envisioning it as a path that you’re on because I can feel it. When I’m on it and I can barely see two steps ahead of me, I know I’m on the right path because opportunities come to me. It’s so weird when it happens, but I’m telling you that it happens all of the time.

When I’m not on it, things are a mess. Shit happens.

You’d think that working harder would get you where you want to go faster, so you work faster. But this is a mistake. Slow and easy is the way to go.

All of this stuff I know, but apparently not well enough to stay on the path all of the time.

Even Oprah talked about it once on the back of her magazine. The one time I ever look at that magazine, though I do like her, and she talks on this subject, one that I really like. She just had to take a break and even though it hurt some of her friends feelings, and some of the people she said she’d do things for, she had to do it for herself to remain sane.

You think you have to do it all, but you don’t.

I don’t know how I’m going to work in time to do what I have to do by slowing down, but I’m going to attempt it starting tonight. I’m going to trust in the fact that it is scientifically proven (Guy Claxton, Wise Up).

At the least, I can have a bit of an easier time with it as the store is doing pretty well. Still need to make more money but once people know we deliver, that’ll cover it, because instore sales are more than double what we thought.

Breathe deep.