(no subject)

So I was driving along, and I had a thought.

"How are you going to save the world if you can't manage a simple happiness spell?"

It was an interesting thought. Later on, I had another thought... the reason I'm in my current job is to learn to live with misery.

Kind of a negative thought, but it'll do :-). See, the job I have isn't fun yet, and probably won't ever be. It *might* be, I suppose, but right now, it's four people in a room that's about 3/2s of a broom closet, which is a mild improvement over the 3 in a broom closet from last job (.375 broom closet each, instead of .3334 broom closet, yielding a .0416 broom closet equivalent, which is a better-than 12.5% bce improvement).

Now, as lives go, I'm being paid a lot of money for work that's not very hard, I don't have any horrible duties that aren't self-inflicted, and I have people who love me. My life is pretty darn good.

At the same time, yes, I can't cast a happiness spell, and, perhaps equally importantly, I need to be able to. I can't count on being happy from the outset. In fact, I've discovered that, upon waking my brain is in a bad state. I'm tired (which is my primary depression symptom) and foggy (which makes it hard to think, focus, or meditate) and I'm usually getting ready to go to a job that isn't going to make me very happy.

I'm getting better at some things. With minimal effort, I can drain the cringing, overwhelming energy of past hurtful memories, and I can step away from things in my brain that hurt me. I think I ought to be able to look these things straight in the eye, and accept them, without having to wince, or flinch away, or bear up under the pain of them... but right now I have the uneasy truce, where I can step away from them. They win the minor victory of having me have to acknowledge them, of having me recognize it's a minor struggle to step back and render them powerless, but I win the greater victory, of stepping away and not letting them hurt me further.

I'm just having a harder time getting to the next step. It's not enough to be able to go through life unhurt. There needs to be happiness; there needs to be joy. Without that, life continues to be a struggle, and one can end up beaten bloody when one most needs to be strong.

I'll never save the world, if I can't cast a simple happiness spell.

But I can. Not yet; it'll take work, but it's within my grasp, and I'm going to do it.

Part of making the world a better place means making yourself a better person. You can't disentangle the two; it's foolishness to try.

(no subject)

So I was driving along, and I had a thought.

"How are you going to save the world if you can't manage a simple happiness spell?"

It was an interesting thought. Later on, I had another thought... the reason I'm in my current job is to learn to live with misery.

Kind of a negative thought, but it'll do :-). See, the job I have isn't fun yet, and probably won't ever be. It *might* be, I suppose, but right now, it's four people in a room that's about 3/2s of a broom closet, which is a mild improvement over the 3 in a broom closet from last job (.375 broom closet each, instead of .3334 broom closet, yielding a .0416 broom closet equivalent, which is a better-than 12.5% bce improvement).

Now, as lives go, I'm being paid a lot of money for work that's not very hard, I don't have any horrible duties that aren't self-inflicted, and I have people who love me. My life is pretty darn good.

At the same time, yes, I can't cast a happiness spell, and, perhaps equally importantly, I need to be able to. I can't count on being happy from the outset. In fact, I've discovered that, upon waking my brain is in a bad state. I'm tired (which is my primary depression symptom) and foggy (which makes it hard to think, focus, or meditate) and I'm usually getting ready to go to a job that isn't going to make me very happy.

I'm getting better at some things. With minimal effort, I can drain the cringing, overwhelming energy of past hurtful memories, and I can step away from things in my brain that hurt me. I think I ought to be able to look these things straight in the eye, and accept them, without having to wince, or flinch away, or bear up under the pain of them... but right now I have the uneasy truce, where I can step away from them. They win the minor victory of having me have to acknowledge them, of having me recognize it's a minor struggle to step back and render them powerless, but I win the greater victory, of stepping away and not letting them hurt me further.

I'm just having a harder time getting to the next step. It's not enough to be able to go through life unhurt. There needs to be happiness; there needs to be joy. Without that, life continues to be a struggle, and one can end up beaten bloody when one most needs to be strong.

I'll never save the world, if I can't cast a simple happiness spell.

But I can. Not yet; it'll take work, but it's within my grasp, and I'm going to do it.

Part of making the world a better place means making yourself a better person. You can't disentangle the two; it's foolishness to try.