Inspiration

Just a quick note that I feel compelled to share with all of you.

I just started a new blog ( http://gwogblog.blogspot.com/ ) that is going to deal with a very central part of my being.  The critical point I want to make here is that I want to thank the people who have helped me along this blogging journey.  I have heard from friends and family.  People who are new in my life, and people that have been there all along.  What started as me wanting to connect to people and to inspire people who might be lost to find themselves, has evolved into a synergy with people experiencing other equally life changing events.  For some, it is quitting smoking.  For others it's losing weight.  It's dealing with cancer, losing loved ones, and learning that "I deserve more".  The particulars are as varied as the people who are taking these journeys, but there is a theme.  Something resonates in my words.  It resonates enough to make them reach out and tell me.  And something funny has happened.  I have found inspiration in them.  I have found strength for my own resolve, but my commitment to them, and everyone else who might want to bond with me, to fight for them...with them. 

The message for today is this.  You deserve to be happy.  Period.  There is no qualifier there.  None.  You don't deserve to be happy if...  <insert external force here>  You deserve to be happy.  And if there is something that is keeping you from being happy, address it.  Meet it head on.  Ultimately what prevents us from being happy has to be something unhealthy.  Even if on a trivial level, any willful deferral of happiness is an unhealthy impulse.  That isn't to say that there isn't room for others, and caring for them beyond ourselves.  But if you can't find happiness in providing that place in their life, I struggle to understand how that isn't a purely unhealthy activity or mindset.  You sacrifice for your children, and rightly so.  But the happiness comes from seeing them succeed.  That is a healthy concept.  You sacrifice eating those "bad" foods that might provide a moment of visceral pleasure, but you gain happiness in a greater sense when you stop hating the body you are in.  (And by "you" in any of these statements, I do really mean "I", but I say you to encourage it being internalized.  Maybe the royal "we" would work, but that might be a breach plagiarism laws.) 

Accepting that "I deserve to be happy" is a tough nut to crack because it comes weighed with a host of repercussions.  It means you will have to change.  It means you will have to own the drains on your happiness and address them head on.  And that's hard.  It will challenge you on a fundamental level.  It might mean you have to go through chemical withdrawals.  It may mean letting go of that person who you know in your heart doesn't love you anymore.  And that will hurt.  It will suck.  You will HATE it, and you will fight against it.  Your desire to tolerate is going to try and hold you back.  But the reality is this.  If you can accept it.  If you can internalize "I deserve to be happy", you will find the strength to get there.  If it REALLY matters to you, you will find a way.  If not, you will find an excuse.  And that's not me calling anyone out.  It's meant as a motivation to rebuff that sense that you will experience that tries to tell you to just accept things as they are and not try for more.  So fight my friends.  Please believe that you deserve to purge the bad from your life and you deserve to be fundamentally happy.  Grab that person who gives in by the hand and drag them along with you.  Show them that tomorrow you WILL be happier as a result of choosing to be happy.  Love yourselves, every one of you.  Love yourselves the way you fantasize about wanting someone else to love you.  You are worth this fight, no matter how hard it is. 

YOU DESERVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!