It does exist. I have it. It’s such a strange illness ( can I call it that?)   It creeps on me every time things seem to be sorted in my life.  It’s probably the shit mentality I grew up with: there has to be a balance in life. You can’t have it all. You may have love but not a career and money or the other way around. As long as you got one of these your life is going on the right direction. But not all of them. Something will go wrong if you are fully accomplished. Something will just come and stab you in the back destroying all that happiness. You are just a normal person and not one of those with massive inheritances or a place in the Parliament that goes from generation to generation making you entitled to a silver spoon and therefore to pure happiness. You are just a normal person who will have to settle for normal: follow your career or find love, get married and have kids. Be half happy and settle.
But see, times change and mentality changes as well from one generation to another. We learn to keep up with technology, we learn to adapt with everything new and why not, we upgrade ourselves. This way we learn from others and we develop. This way we learn that we are all entitled to have it all. No matter the age, race, sex, orientation, religion or background, each and every one of us can have it all.
But there is always a but. And the biggest one is our own will and bravery. And I think I lack one of them completely. I know I do because every time I am close to getting something I really want I chicken out, I start doubting, I back down and retreat, afraid of that what if I fail or what if all this good is followed by something bad.
I have no idea where I get this from but it is so frustrating not being able to go past a fear so silly as mine.
I can remember moments in my life when I could have gone further, achieved more, maybe have a different career and most definitely more financial stability but they all went like they came. Opportunities I never took advantage of for fear of failure, for fear of being too happy.
The fear of happiness lives amongst us and we need to destroy it. It’s like a monster we keep feeding and it grows and grows, bigger and bigger every day while we become smaller. We settle for almost nothing when we can have so many. We lack ambition and courage and we got no idea why or when it started.
I keep thinking how I became like this and I have no answer. Maybe I always been, maybe something triggered it. I really don’t know. I start things and I never finish them. Not because I can’t finish them but because I fear the changes that will come once they are finished. I started writing a book and everyone said it’s amazing but see, when I heard that my inspiration vanished somehow and the script is hidden somewhere deep behind books I read. I left there for fear of the happiness it might bring to me. I sometimes think about it, I write paragraphs in my head and I change bits and bobs but never on paper. Always in my mind.
I can’t help but wonder if I will be brave one day and take it all out, finish it and take the plunge. Right now I keep finding excuses related to lack of time, inspiration, kids priorities and life un general but I know one day all these excuse will vanish and I will have to face it all. Will I be brave enough or will be scared, suffering from fear of happiness again until the day it will be to late?