Pain is Inevitable but Misery is Optional

"Happiness and misery depend not on how high up or low down you are - they depend not upon these, but on the direction in which you are tending."  ~Samuel Butler

I think this is not only a different way of looking at happiness and misery but also a very powerful statement.  Cause if you really think about it, it really isn't necessarily how high up or low you are but the direction you intend to take for your future that makes you either happy or miserable.

In the best workshop at this year's WBC that I went to called, "Pain is inevitable, Misery is Optional: Your Right to Happiness," I learned that pain is either physical, mental or emotional but misery is circumstantial.  And I think the quote above fits right in with what I learned in that workshop.  So if misery is circumstantial and not dependent on how high up or low you are, we have the power to change our state of misery by changing our circumstances and/or changing the direction that we dream or believe or intend to head.  However, changing our circumstances isn't always easy because if we have had a trauma in our lives, we are thrown into certain circumstances that breed misery.  But we can change our thoughts on our direction.  If we think negatively all the time and that we're never going to amount to nothing (I am guilty of this on several occasions, I admit) of course we're going to be miserable and thereby making our circumstances miserable.  But if we at least try to have a positive attitude and dream our dreams, believe that we will amount to something if we would just put ourselves out there and try, think of a positive direction in which we intend, our miserable circumstances morph into a more happy state and even happiness in ourselves.  For what I also learned (and also knew already but it was a good refresher) in that workshop is that we most often seek happiness OUTSIDE ourselves when real happiness can only be found WITHIN ourselves.  And much of that is our thoughts on the direction in which we intend.

My circumstances are miserable.  I can't deny that.  I'm not the beautiful girl I once was and who knows if that will change as time and surgeries go by and worst of all, my body doesn't cooperate when it comes to healing properly so it's always hit or miss if a surgery is going to work or if contractures will take over.  And I also tend to think I have nothing positive in store for me in my future.  But what if I were to change my thoughts on the direction in which I intend, like, "I'm going to get back into show business," or "I'm going to get my PhD in Clinical Psychology and go to work for the FBI," or maybe even both, then my misery may lift and my circumstances may also change in the process because I may find myself in happier circumstances if I believe in those thoughts because positive thoughts and intentions can have the great power to change the misery in your circumstances into happiness.  I have a right to happiness but it's ultimately up to me and my desire to change my circumstances from miserable to happy and not be afraid to step out of that misery and be happy.  But there's gotta be that desire to do so.  No one and no material can do this for me.  It's gotta be a desire to be happy that burns like a flame.  And I'm sick of being miserable.  I want to change my circumstances and I want to change my thoughts on the direction in which I intend.  Like Pink sings in her new album with the song, "Try", Where there is desire there is gonna be a flame, where there is a flame someone's bound to get burned, But just because it burns doesn't mean you're gonna die, You gotta get up and try, try, try.