The idea for this blog came to me after a very difficult period in my life: death of a beloved family member, a failed eight-year relationship, a broken leg, difficulty finding friends in a new city, strings of unsuccessful job interviews, and a completed novel that no one wanted to publish. While things were falling apart, I tried positive thinking and prayer and exercise. I made resolutions and tried "new approaches" and grilled friends on things I might change. No matter what I did, I could not make my life go exactly the way I wanted. And the less I could make my life go the way I wanted, the worse I felt. After all, with hard work and the right attitude, I thought I should be able to make all my dreams come true. If I couldn't then I must be doing something wrong. I was sure that I was missing out on my life despite my best efforts.
Eventually, after I tried everything I could think of to get my life back on track, despair set in. I could hardly get out of bed. I cried all the time. And then, somewhere in the darkness, I realized that I was asking the wrong question. I had been doing everything to possible to figure out how to get the life I wanted. Instead, I needed to figure out how to live the life that I had.
We are told again and again that our goal should be happiness. We should figure out what we want and make it happen. We want God to deliver our custom-ordered life. But God created a custom-made life just for us--it's the life we already have. It may not look exactly the way we pictured, and things may not go exactly the way we want. We must strive to do the best job possible to live the lives that we have been given and to fulfill all the unique tasks God has put before us that we and we alone can fulfill.
This way of looking at the world saved my life. I have no idea if sharing my story will help even one person, but it is one small attempt to reach out to those who might feel the way that I felt. I know it isn't enough. I don't have any of the big answers: I don't know what God's purpose for us is or what comes next or why we suffer. All I have is a way of looking at the world that has helped me make sense of my challenges.
Felicity means both a source of happiness and a skillful faculty. Finding meaning in hardship is a source of happiness, and an ability to see utility in pain is a skillful faculty indeed. I hope that my thoughts might plant seeds of growth for others who struggle to find fulfillment and meaning when life is at its darkest.
God bless,
Felicity Seeds
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