When I turned 30 about 10 years ago, a friend who was already 40 said to me, “30 is a great age!  Life begins at 30!”

I was very encouraged to hear this because, frankly, I had been waiting for my life to begin.  My birthday came and went and I waited… then it was the Spring… and then it was the Summer and then it was my birthday again and I was still waiting… well… you get the point.

Waiting for life to begin is like waiting for “Waiting for Godot,” the Samuel Beckett, “tragicomedy” in which two characters wait for someone named Godot, who never arrives.  In the play, during their two days of waiting, the pair of men divert themselves with various distractions such as eating, sleeping, arguing, singing, playing games, exercising, exchanging hats and contemplating suicide — anything “to hold the terrible silence at bay,” they say.

Voted the most significant English language play of the 20th century in a British Royal National Theater poll of 800 playwrights, actors, directors and journalists, “Waiting For Godot” won such prestigious accolades because it spoke to a spiritual conundrum that many people face and pointed out the human tendency to occupy ourselves with distractions in order to avoid the real work that needs to be done when we take full responsibility for our lives.

For the majority of my life I told myself, “I will only be happy if _____________________(fill in the blank).”  My conditions were 1) I could only be happy if I were in a relationship.  2) I could only be happy if my mother apologized to me for my childhood.  3) I could only be happy if everyone, everywhere constantly validated my existence by never causing me to feel anything remotely unpleasant.  There were many other conditions, conscious and subconscious, which made for a very emotionally tumultuous and barely tolerable existence.
Like a leaf in the wind, my emotions would be twisted and tossed as if I had no say where they would end up.   Maybe something would happen and I would feel good for a minute, then something else would happen and I would flip a table in a pizzeria (true story… for another post) Living like this is not only crazy, it is extremely disempowering.   It is also delusional because, frankly, I had more control over my emotions than I thought I did.
Let me tell you… there is no magic pill… if there were, I would have found it already (also a true story… ha ha).  If I want a happy life, I have to understand that there are many actions I can take which will improve the quality of my life, but everything starts with determination and gains traction with action.

Once I made the determination that I was going enjoy my life and backed it up with action, it was as if the forces of the universe joined in that resolve.  This is not always easy but the trick really is to be happy NOW – not in some future moment that is not guaranteed.   This doesn’t mean that there are no challenges  – it just means that happiness is a choice that we re-commit to every day.  If I get stuck on a negative memory or the like, I make the decision to actively change my thinking.  This takes practice but it gets results.  The way I look at it today is if the thoughts I am having are making me sick, I drop them the same way I would drop a hot coal that is burning my hands.  This takes practice, but it is very empowering.  We are only here for a short time.  There’s no time to waste being stuck in a negative groove.

Life begins at a time of our choosing.  For me, it began when I stopped putting conditions on my happiness and made the decision to actually enjoy my life – whatever the circumstances may be.

Thanks for reading.