You may not be happy

lifeisaprettyword.com blog; Photo by Mariam Soliman on Unsplash

"You may not be happy, but you will be at peace." --Eckhart Tolle

You've probably heard of choosing a word for the year rather than writing an agonizingly long list of goals you're unlikely to achieve. My current word is NOW. I selected it a few weeks before stumbling upon Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of NOW" in a lovely little neighborhood bookstore in Mt. Dora, Florida. 

This book isn't the sort you read over the weekend. It requires study time. At least it did for me. I found myself rereading paragraphs continuously. And making extensive use of my neon highlighter on nearly every page.

And yet, I didn't want to put the book down and spent time with it every day for weeks. It became a fascination studying my mind and what it's thinking. I had fun. How weird, eh?

"You may not be happy, but you will be at peace."

This quote resonated and became a central point while working through the annual planning I've been doing of late. Over the past year when I've talked about my intentions to shift from bereaved mother to joyous mother (which frequently brought a smile to loved one's faces), something didn't sit right with my comments. So when I read the quote in Mr. Tolle's book, I think I said out loud, "That's it!"

I never (yes never) think of myself as a joyous person. And not only since my daughter died. I've always felt this way. The "happy happy joy joy" personality I so enjoy seeing in others has eluded me.  This doesn't mean I'm never happy. But now I'm recognizing I'm often at peace.