The Story Is Never Over
Patience may be what allows any of us to find true happiness.
When I was 20 I thought that being happy meant working towards things you want. I thought that it meant focusing on what was to come, how exciting it will be when you get there and how beautiful the end destination will be.
When I was 23 I countered that belief with the though that happiness meant living in the present. Doing anything you wanted, when and how you felt was right in that exact moment. I believed that there was no worry of the future and no regret of the past that would bring happiness long term.
At 26 I now believe that happiness is about understanding where you fall in the story. Knowing that the story is never over and appreciating the beauty in that. Acknowledging and mindfully accepting that patience is the only real catalyst to happiness. Knowing how blessed you are that your past brought you here, and that with time your dedication and work will bring you to the next chapter.
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How did I get there? Well in an era of over reacting, immediate responses, and the #yolo lifestyle, I’ve learned something that has brought me peace of mind from my past life of a less than stable emotional rollercoaster of a 20 something year old. In my now less frequent moments of overwhelming emotions, I have used justified past experiences to remind myself that “the story is never over”. That, and a whole lot of spin and yoga to help activate mindfulness.
When I succeed, it makes every response proactive rather than reactive. It makes my thoughts of the “end of the world situation” that I may currently be in become less than "the end". And rather brings a realization that everything is only what your perceptions sees it to be. Your reaction is just a result of how you interpret that situation on hand will affect your life further when you move on from the present. Think of it this way, you only overreact because you think that phone call just brought the news that will alter the rest of your life. When you mindfully remind yourself it won't and that much more will change before that's possible, you are able to recenter.
You see our “HOLLY SHIT MY LIFE IS OVER” phone call to our best friend is because we truly believe that with what happened, the outcome can only be negative. The fight with your boyfriend will end up in a break up, in which you will regret your actions your entire life and you will never rekindle that same spark and therefor your life… over. OR maybe, just maybe, that fight may end up in a break up. A worthy moment of holly shit. But a moment that you will never regret because with patience comes time and growth. With patience comes the rest of the chapters. Eventually perhaps in a day, a month or a year that person will grow to see that the fight meant something for a reason and will come back and build a relationship stronger and of more value. Or maybe it will make you realize how much value you put on that argue worthy experience and know that because of your different views that person was never the one for you.
In the midst of trying to make big decision keeping the thought that the story is never over is settling. It's worked for me in the past and Im starting to see reason to give the same advice.... especially in relationships. I think it’s a beautiful thing to keep at the core of your daily life. There is a lot of peace in knowing that something isn’t the end all of the matter. The flip side of this is knowing that patience can take you so far in life, yet one of the hardest things to conceptualize when you seek immediate results as many of us do. I wonder if everyone is just making decisions based off of their reactions rather than having patience, mindfulness and trusting there is no end?
Because we seek immediate results in everything we tend to portray impatience in work and love and whatever desire we need confirmation in.… But I find the idea being so mindful and feeling that the story is never over is a really healthy way of looking at things because no matter how big or how small that problem is to you at that moment it's never the end results because there's no such thing.
What I find the most interesting is just exploring what life could be if we ourselves didn’t overreact and rather brought rationality into our decisions and mindfulness into our actions. Imagine then that others did the same and the affect of what that would look like in our relationships.