I am often asked how to start things. Someone might say I would like to paint a picture because that will make happy. Another person may want to play the piano or the guitar or build a business. Why can’t I start?
If something makes us happy, why don’t we buy a canvass and paint or start a company and go into business?
One simple but powerful answer is that we would really need to rely on ourselves for our own happiness, with no one to tell us what we should be doing. For most people, that is not so easy. Other people tell us what is good for us from birth. First our parents, than our peers and teachers, college professors, driving instructors, our partners, and society as a whole, which is largely a good thing in an interconnected world, where we benefit from our collective intelligence and skills. However, it is always important to keep seeing it for what it is, suggestions from others who do not know ourselves as well as we do. As you cannot make another person happy in every instance, because you don’t know as much about that person as they know about themselves, what they truly want and need, another person cannot look fully after your happiness, because they don’t know you as well as you do. But if you recognise that you and I are two different people with our own distinct sets of wants, needs, values and aspiration, we can help each other towards greater happiness.
So, when you think whether you should buy a paintbrush, sign up for a course or change a job, connect with your inner self, the place where the strength to start anything comes from, feel what has made you happy in the past and what would truly make you happy now, and then think about a way of getting there. Buying the paintbrush or a second-hand electric guitar may seem easier than changing a job, but in the end, the only guide that knows best about you and will be by your side always is your own inner self, which connects you with all those billions of people out there. Trusting yourself is trusting your essence of being human, which also connects you with others. Don’t be afraid to start.
Thank you for meeting me,
Jonathan
04-02-2021
© 2021 Christian Jonathan Haverkampf. All Rights Reserved. To contact me, please see www.jonathanhaverkampf.com or www.jonathanhaverkampf.ie. I am also a guest on www.wordnets.com These are just my thoughts. I may be wrong.
