Happy Friday! we’ve almost made it through another week. Doesn’t it make you a little sad how much we wish for the weekdays to fly by, to make it to the weekend, a moment of quiet in which we finally get to decide how we spend our time without feeling guilt? For such a developed society, doesn’t this seem like we got things a little mixed up? We went from roaming freely, eating berries and exploring our surroundings to existing within a cage of responsibilities and expectations that we built ourselves. We might not have to be on high alert for threats to our lives in quite the same way we used to but I think it would be wrong to say that we don’t face new threats in this day and age. Threats that come in all shapes and sizes : viruses, accidents, attacks fuelled by a scarily long list of ‘isms’, debt, excess and lack In every form, the list goes on. Then there are the threats that are disguised and hidden and not instantly obvious. The threat I want to talk about today is one I live in fear of.
The threat of realising that you’ve lived your life for everyone but yourself.

i wrote last week about the importance of tending to your garden and learning what helps you grow and thrive. What I didn’t touch upon was how difficult it can be when these things aren’t what ‘society’ expects of you. How frustrating it can be when ‘the way things are done’ just doesn’t resonate with you. We live our lives In Such a rush towards happiness, chasing milestone after milestone in the perpetual hunt for contentment with our lives and with ourselves. We live with the unquestioned belief that we’ll finally be happy once we -insert literally anything here-. Too few people ever stop for long enough to question if this formula even works. We have a tendency to focus so much on what we’re not happy with that we forget to appreciate what brings joy and magic into our lives each and every day. We are the sole deciders of how we live our lives and yet so many of us follow this prescribed formula without second thought. We are the only ones that get to experience our own lives, individually. We need to stop living for other people and start living for ourselves. We need to question what makes us feel full of life. Where does the magic reside? What does living an authentic life look like to each of us? This happy version of ourselves exists inside of us already, buried beneath all these things that we think will bring it to the surface. Its being weighed down by all these things that might change the way we feel about our lives in the moment but ultimately the only way it can truly rise up into the light is to let go of all these pressures and expectations and just allow ourselves to feel happy.

There are pockets of joy in each day that we get to live that are so full of light and happiness but we’re so blind to them. We so easily get swept away by the pressure to have our lives all mapped out and know exactly what we want to do with our time here on earth. How many of us are staying trapped underneath all that fear and pressure and expectation? How many lives are being half lived in the pursuit of this magic formula? There is no one size fits all recipe for building a rich and fulfilling life. There is simply the act of chasing those small, magical moments and collecting as many of them as we can. each one of us can find the things that warm our hearts and breathe air into our lungs, all we must do is open our eyes to them.

happiness is just a collection of things that make you smile each and every day. It’s dancing in your kitchen to your favourite song at 1 am as you make yourself a late night snack. It’s thrusting open your windows when the Sun shines and allowing the summer breeze to flow through your space. It’s enjoying every sip of your morning tea or coffee, embracing a quiet moment to yourself. it’s laughter between friends, memories and stories shared with full hearts, flushed cheeks and beaming faces. It’s the echo in the halls of museums and art galleries, bursting with the stories of those that have lived before us. It’s found beneath a blanket of stars, in the first light of morning, in the coming and going of the waves lapping at your feet. It’s in passionate kisses and warm embraces, fingertips dancing across your skin. its glow permeates childhood memories and forgotten places. It’s in the photos you take, the words you read, the shows you watch and the food that you eat. It’s ice cream dripping down your fingers on a hot summer’s day. it’s your grandmother singing as she does the washing up, it’s the first bloom of spring, it’s your favourite pair of shoes. It’s the crack of thunder and the patter of rain drops. It’s the smell of flowers, coffee, the sea. It’s the burning flames of a fire in the winter, in the comforting whir of a fan in the summer. It’s in picnic blankets, knitted blankets, duvets and pillows. In mugs and plants and books and films. It’s the dancing of Pen across page, feet across stage, the creases of age. It’s in the flickering of candles, street lights and the light of the moon. It’s woven into your favourite chair, curled upon your lap and held within your heart. It’s the first snowfall of the year, snowflakes slowly drifting down to blanket the Earth. It’s feeling the Sun on your face and the wind in your hair and the ground beneath your feet. It’s nestled between the pages of your favourite book, in your mothers embrace, in a stranger’s smile. It’s in distant lands and far away places, adventures to be had and wonders to be explored. It’s getting completely and utterly lost in the place you call home and discovering the magic that’s right on your doorstep. It’s falling hopelessly in love with an absolute stranger, two paths merging into one filled with light and promise.

Happiness is quite literally all around us. All you have to do is look.

if you want to hear more about my journey towards a more authentic existence, follow me on instagram @the.authenticity.project and on medium . see my photography work on instagram @s.ophiea.lice and connect with me on linkedin.

big love to you all x