Episode 83
Could you just choose to be happy with your circumstances?
Well, yes. You probably could.
But here's another question...
Just because you can make yourself happy with the life you have, does that mean it's actually the life you want?
What if you've become so good at making things work, meeting expectations, and doing what you're supposed to do, that you've stopped asking yourself what you really want?
And what if some of the limitations you're living with aren't even being placed on you by anyone else anymore? What if you've taken them on so completely that they've become part of who you see yourself as?
In this episode, we're exploring the difference between choosing to be happy with what you have and giving yourself permission to want something more. We'll look at the expectations, beliefs and fears that can shape our choices, why being good at something doesn't necessarily mean it's right for us, and how we can begin to rediscover what brings us joy, expansion and a deeper sense of being alive.
If you're ready to join me, pull up a comfy chair, invite in your soul and be open to receive exactly what you need to live, be and thrive as the embodied soul you are.
I want to explore a question that came up in a conversation this week, because my initial reaction to it was quite strong.
The question was: “Could you just choose to be happy with your circumstances?"
And when that was proposed, my immediate response was, “What?! No!”
Now, that might sound a little contradictory, because I absolutely believe that we’re always in choice. I believe we have much more ability to choose how we perceive things, how we respond to them, and even what we believe is possible for ourselves than we sometimes realize.
But I think there's a much bigger conversation underneath that question.
Because yes, we can choose to be happy with our circumstances. We can choose to look at something differently. We can change our perspective. We can decide to make the best of a situation, to find the good in it, to appreciate what we have.
But just because we can do that, doesn’t mean that's what we actually want.
And I think that's where things get interesting. Because there's a difference between being able to make something work and choosing something because it genuinely feels right for us.
There's a difference between being capable of doing something, being good at something, and actually wanting to do it.
And I think many of us have become so accustomed to making things work, to adapting, to being resilient, to doing what needs to be done, that we don't always stop to ask ourselves whether this is actually what we want.
Or whether we've simply become very good at living with what we've got.
Now, I'm not suggesting that we should all be chasing some idealized version of happiness, or that every time something feels uncomfortable we should immediately decide it's time to change it.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about something a little deeper.
I'm talking about the difference between choosing something because it genuinely lights us up, and choosing it because we think we should.
And sometimes those two things can look remarkably similar from the outside.
We might even look happy. We might be successful. We might have a good life by all the usual measures. And yet, somewhere underneath it all, there might be a part of us that's asking for something more.
So let's explore that.
Because I think one of the first things we need to look at is how we come to want the things we want in the first place.
We're all influenced by the environments we've grown up in. Our families, our parents, our teachers, our schools, our culture, our religion, our education systems. All of these things contribute to the beliefs we develop about ourselves and about what life is supposed to look like.
And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. These influences give us wonderful foundations. They can help us develop skills, values, a sense of belonging and direction.
But sometimes, without really realizing it, we absorb a whole set of expectations about what a good life looks like.
You go to school. You get good grades. You go to university. You get a respectable degree. You get a good job. You earn a decent income. You buy a house. You build a relationship. You support your family. You become successful.
And again, there's absolutely nothing wrong with any of those things.
They can be wonderful. They can be exactly what someone wants.
But what happens when that becomes *the* definition of success? When it becomes the template against which we measure ourselves, rather than one of many possible ways to live a fulfilling life?
And this can be particularly interesting when we look at family expectations.
Imagine parents who've worked incredibly hard, perhaps sacrificed a great deal, to give their children opportunities they never had themselves.
They've worked hard so their child can have a good education, a secure future, perhaps go to a prestigious university, become a doctor or a lawyer, have a career that offers stability and respect.
And then that child says, “Actually, I want to be an artist. I want to be a musician. I want to act. I want to do something completely different.”
You can almost hear the response.
“After everything we've sacrificed? You want to do WHAT?”
Now, underneath that response there may be love. There may be concern. There may be a genuine desire to protect that child from hardship. There may be a belief that this is the best way to give them a good life.
But the child may experience it very differently.
They may feel that they're disappointing their parents. That they're being disloyal. That they're somehow rejecting everything their family has worked for.
And so they learn.
They learn what makes them acceptable. What makes their parents proud. What earns approval. What makes them a good daughter or a good son. What makes them worthy of love, respect and belonging.
And they may become very, very good at being that person.
They may go on to get the degree, build the career, become successful. They may even enjoy parts of it.
But have they actually chosen that life?
Or have they learned how to become the person who can live it successfully?
I think that's a really important distinction.
Because we can spend years, sometimes decades, building a life around things we've learned we're supposed to want.
And we may not even recognize that there's another question available to us.
Not just, “What should I do?”
But, “What do I actually want?”
And I think that's where we need to start giving ourselves a little more room.
Because being good at something doesn't necessarily mean it's what we're here to do.
Being able to succeed at something doesn't necessarily mean it's our most expansive expression.
And being able to make ourselves happy with something doesn't necessarily mean it's where we most want to be.
I can give a personal example of this.
I spent twenty years working in a university environment. I had a career. I was successful. I was promoted. There were aspects of the work I genuinely enjoyed, and there were plenty of days when I was happy and excited about what I was doing.
From the outside, there wasn't anything that would have suggested I needed to make a change.
And yet, there was this reocurring feeling that something wasn't quite right.
I remember having this thought, quite often, that my soul was dying a little bit each day.
And I find that interesting now, because at the time I didn't really have the language for that. I hadn't grown up with a religious background, and the word *soul* wasn't really part of my everyday vocabulary.
Yet there it was.
Something in me was communicating that, even though I could do this, even though I was good at it, even though I could enjoy it and make a really good life out of it, there was something missing.
And I don't want to suggest that I was miserable for twenty years. I wasn’t. That's actually the point.
I could be happy in that environment. I could make it work. I could find things to enjoy. I could be successful.
And there was another part of me that wanted something different.
And I think we sometimes wait until we're completely miserable before we give ourselves permission to acknowledge that.
We wait until something is unbearable. Until we reach breaking point. Until we can point to a very clear reason why we have to leave, why we have to change, why we have to do something differently.
As though we need to prove that something is bad enough before we're allowed to want something else.
But what if we don't?
What if we can simply recognize that something isn't the fullest expression of who we are?
We don't have to be unhappy to want something different.
We don't have to exhaust every possible way of making things work.
And we don't have to make our current circumstances wrong in order to acknowledge that we might want something more.
I think that's an important part of this conversation. Because sometimes we confuse acceptance with resignation.
Acceptance can be a beautiful thing. It's the ability to recognize what is, to stop fighting reality, to make peace with where we find ourselves.
But resignation can sometimes wear the same clothing.
We tell ourselves, “This is just how things are. I should be grateful. I can't expect more. I need to make the best of it.”
And perhaps those words are coming from a genuine place of acceptance.
Or perhaps, underneath them, there's a little bit of giving up.
Perhaps we've decided that wanting something different is unreasonable. That it's selfish. That we're asking too much.
And I think it's worth being curious about which one we're experiencing.
Because gratitude and desire can coexist.
We can appreciate what we have and still want something more.
We can love aspects of our life and still recognize that something else is calling to us.
We can be happy in a particular circumstance and still know that it's not where we want to remain.
And this brings me back to that original question.
Could you just choose to be happy with your circumstances?
Well, I suppose I could choose to be happy almost anywhere.
You could put me in Antarctica, for example.
I mean, I could make the best of it. I could find things to enjoy. I could appreciate the incredible landscape, the beauty of the ice, the experience of being somewhere so unusual.
But honestly? No thank you.
I don't particularly want to be in the cold all the time. I like trees. I like green. I like being able to go outside without having to wrap myself in seventeen layers.
And yes, I could choose to be happy there.
But would that be my most expansive expression? Would that be where I feel most enlivened, most nourished, most connected to the things I love?
Probably not.
And that's a very simple example, but it illustrates something.
Our preferences, our desires, the things that excite us, the things that bring us joy, the things that make us feel curious or expansive — they're not necessarily trivial.
They're information. They're signposts.
And I think we've sometimes have been taught to dismiss that information.
To put it off to one side because it's impractical, because it doesn't fit the plan, because it might disappoint someone, because it might involve risk, or because it doesn't look like the sensible thing to do.
But what if those feelings are actually important parts of how we navigate our lives?
What if the things that light us up are giving us clues about what we want to experience, what we want to create, and how we want to express ourselves?
And perhaps the question isn't simply whether we can choose to be happy.
Perhaps it's: “What’s the energy underneath the choice I'm making?”
Am I choosing this because I genuinely want it?
Because it feels right? Because it brings me joy? Because it feels expansive, interesting, nourishing, enlivening?
Or am I choosing it because I'm afraid of what might happen if I don't?
And that can be a very revealing question.
Because there are all sorts of fears that can influence our decisions.
Fear of losing a job. Fear of losing a relationship. Fear of being alone. Fear of not being loved or liked. Fear of disappointing people. Fear of not having enough money. Fear of not being able to support ourselves or our families.
Fear of the unknown.
And sometimes we make choices that look like preferences, but when we really examine them, we discover that they're actually attempts to avoid something we're afraid of.
We stay because we're afraid to leave.
We don't try because we're afraid we might fail.
We don't express what we want because we're afraid someone might disapprove.
We don't explore something that excites us because we've already decided it isn't sensible, or realistic, or possible.
And I'm not saying that every time we feel afraid, we should ignore it and leap into the unknown.
Absolutely not.
There's a difference between fear and discernment.
I remember a mentor of mine once using the example of a sign at a beach that says, “Sharks in the water.”
You don't have to be afraid of the shark. You don't have to give your power away to fear. But that doesn't mean you should go swimming.
That's discernment.
You can recognize what's there, take the information into account, and make a sensible decision.
And I think that's a useful distinction when we're looking at the choices we make in our lives.
If you're the sole income earner in your family, for example, and you're thinking about leaving your job, there may be very real practical considerations.
You might need to make a plan. You might need to build a financial cushion. You might need to explore other opportunities before making a move.
That doesn't mean you're wrong to want something different.
It means you need to consider how you can move towards it in a way that takes your circumstances into account.
And if you're in a toxic or abusive situation, that's another conversation entirely. Your safety matters. You may need support and a plan to help you move towards a safer situation.
The point is that practical considerations can inform *how* and *when* we make a change. But they don't necessarily get to decide what we're allowed to want.
And I think that's where we sometimes get ourselves stuck.
We let the practicalities, the fears, the expectations, the opinions of others become the only things we're listening to.
And our own desires don't even get a seat at the table.
In fact, something I notice quite often when working with people is that if I ask them what they actually want, they sometimes find that surprisingly difficult to answer.
They can tell me what they should do.
They can tell me what's expected of them. What's sensible. What their family would want. What would make them a good person. What would make them successful. What might keep everyone happy.
But when I ask, “What do you want?” there's often a pause.
And it's not necessarily because they don't have desires, or because they don't have an inner knowing.
It's that they may have spent so much of their lives focused on what they're supposed to do, what's expected of them, and what makes sense, that they've had very little opportunity to really explore what they actually want.
They've become accustomed to asking themselves things like:
What should I do?
What am I supposed to do?
What would other people think?
What is the responsible thing?
What is the right thing?
And somewhere along the way, the question of what brings me joy, what excites me, what feels expansive, what I would love to experience, gets pushed further and further down the list and perhaps never gets asked.
So perhaps we need to change that.
Not by putting our desires above everything else. Not by abandoning our responsibilities or pretending that practical considerations don't exist.
But by allowing what we want to become a legitimate part of the conversation.
By giving it some space. By being willing to ask ourselves questions that we might not have asked for a very long time.
What do I actually enjoy?
What makes me feel more alive?
What am I curious about?
What have I been putting off because I decided it wasn't practical?
What do I keep telling myself I can't have?
And perhaps one of the most interesting questions is:
“If nobody had an expectation of me, what might I choose?”
And what if I also set aside the expectations I've placed on myself? The things I've decided I should be, should want, or should do. What might become possible then?
Not necessarily what would I do tomorrow. Not what would I immediately change.
Just what might I choose if I wasn't trying to meet someone else's expectations?
What might I want if I didn't have to justify it?
And I think that can open up some really interesting possibilities.
Now, I also want to acknowledge that simply asking ourselves what we want can sometimes feel quite overwhelming.
Because perhaps you genuinely don't know. Or perhaps you have an inkling, but you have absolutely no idea what it would look like, how you would make it happen, or where you would even begin.
And when that's the case, it can feel much easier to simply accept what you have, make the best of it, and choose to be happy with your circumstances.
And I understand that. Because the familiar can feel a whole lot safer than opening ourselves up to something we can't yet see or understand.
But I don't think we need to have the answers before we're allowed to explore the questions.
We don't need to know what the whole thing looks like. We don't need a plan. We don't even need to make a decision.
We can simply begin by allowing ourselves to be curious about what we might want, and giving those desires a little more room than we've perhaps allowed them before.
Because sometimes we don't even realize how much of our decision-making is influenced by the desire to be approved of.
To be liked. To be seen as responsible. To be considered successful. To be a good parent, partner, friend, daughter, son, colleague.
And there's nothing wrong with wanting to be those things.
But what happens when maintaining those identities require us to keep putting parts of ourselves aside?
What happens when the person we've become so good at being isn't necessarily the person we most want to be?
I think that’s worth exploring.
And there's another part of this that I want to touch on, because I think the word *happy* itself can sometimes make the conversation a little too small.
When we ask whether we can choose to be happy with our circumstances, what are we actually talking about?
Because happiness can be quite a broad word.
It can mean that we're okay. That things are fine. That we're comfortable. That we're not unhappy.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
But I'm interested in something beyond simply being okay.
I'm interested in joy. Delight. Excitement. Curiosity. Wonder. Passion. That feeling of being engaged with life, of having something light us up from the inside.
That feeling of expansion.
You know, we can sometimes say, “I'm happy,” with a little shrug.
And I wonder whether we've become accustomed to thinking that that’s enough.
That as long as we're reasonably comfortable, as long as things are working, as long as we're not experiencing too much difficulty, we should be content.
But what if we're also allowed to want to feel alive?
To feel more. To experience more. To be excited about what's possible.
To follow something simply because it brings us joy, even if we can't immediately explain where it's going to lead.
And this doesn't mean we need to be joyful every minute of every day. Life isn't like that. We have difficult experiences. We have responsibilities. We have periods where things are uncertain, uncomfortable and challenging.
I'm not suggesting that a fulfilling life is one in which everything feels wonderful all the time.
But I do think there's a difference between accepting that life has its challenges and making a diminished experience of our life our expectation.
We're not here simply to make life bearable.
We're here to experience it.
And I believe we're creative beings. We have more agency than we’ve been taught. We can explore, experiment, discover, and make choices that take us into experiences we may not even have imagined were possible.
But to do that, we have to be willing to get curious about what we actually want.
And sometimes that starts with something very small. It doesn't have to be a dramatic life change.
Perhaps it's noticing that there's something you've been wanting to try, and allowing yourself to try it.
Perhaps it's saying yes to something that genuinely excites you, rather than automatically saying no because it doesn't fit your usual routine.
Perhaps it's giving yourself permission to explore an interest you've put aside.
Perhaps it's noticing when you're doing something simply because it's expected of you, and asking whether you still want to do it.
And as we begin to make those smaller choices, we can start to learn something about ourselves.
We can discover what feels expansive. What feels nourishing. What brings us joy.
We can begin to recognize the difference between something that feels unfamiliar because we're moving beyond an old comfort zone, and something that genuinely doesn't feel right for us.
And that discernment develops through experience.
Sometimes we need to take a small step before we can see the next one.
And when we're considering bigger changes — a job, a relationship, a home, a lifestyle, perhaps even the way we structure our lives — we may need to take more time.
We may need to prepare. We may need to create some stability around the change. We may need to explore what's possible before we make a decision.
But we can begin by allowing ourselves to want it.
We can begin by not dismissing the desire before we've even given it room to breathe.
And I think that's a really important place to start.
Because you don't need to know exactly how something is going to happen in order to acknowledge that you want it.
You don't need to have the whole plan. You don't need to know every step.
You can simply allow yourself to recognize that something is calling to you, and become curious about what that might mean.
And perhaps, as you begin to follow those little threads of interest and excitement, you start to notice things you hadn't noticed before.
New possibilities. New connections. New ideas. Opportunities that perhaps weren't visible when you were focused only on maintaining the life you already had.
You begin to engage with life a little differently. And that's where I think things can really open up.
So I'd love to leave you with a few questions to explore. Just invitations to become a little more curious.
Where in your life are you making something work simply because you can?
Where are you choosing something because it feels right, and where might you be choosing it because you feel you should?
Are there things you've become very good at doing that you don't necessarily want to keep doing?
Are there desires, interests, or possibilities you've quietly put aside because they didn't fit someone else's idea of what your life should look like?
And perhaps most importantly:
What would make you feel more alive?
Not necessarily happier in the conventional sense.
More alive.
More connected. More engaged. More curious. More expansive. More excited about the experience of being here.
And if something comes to mind, you don't need to do anything with it just yet.
You can simply acknowledge it.
You can let yourself want it.
You can begin to explore what it might look like, what it might require, and whether there's a small step you could take towards it.
Because just because you can make yourself happy with your circumstances doesn't mean you have to stop there.
And just because you've managed to make something work doesn't mean it's the only thing available to you.
You don't have to be unhappy with the life you've created to recognize that there's more of life you'd like to experience.
You don't have to prove that something is wrong before you're allowed to want something different.
And you don't have to wait until you reach breaking point before you give yourself permission to listen.
Perhaps the invitation isn't simply to choose to be happy with what you have.
Perhaps it's to give yourself permission to choose what you actually want.
To allow your own joy, your own curiosity, your own sense of expansion to become part of the way you navigate your life.
Because we're not just here to meet expectations, fulfill obligations, and make the best of whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.
We're also here to explore, to create, to discover, to experience.
And we're allowed to want a life that makes us feel more alive.
So perhaps that's the question to carry with you:
“What would I choose if I allowed myself to want what I really want?”
And what might become possible if I stopped asking whether I *could* be happy with what I have, and started exploring what would allow me to feel fully alive?
And perhaps you don't need to have the answers right now. Just let those questions sit with you. Be curious about what comes up.
If something in this episode supported you, or perhaps offered you a new perspective, please like it or share it with someone you think may benefit. It really does support getting the messages out to those who need them.
Thanks for being here, and I look forward to being with you again next week.
