Don’t Chase Happiness

I’m big on coherence.

When something feels off, I want to understand why.

And I’m pretty good at it.

But lately, I found myself analyzing everything.

Why do I feel this way?

What happened?

What can I change?

What can I fix?

At some point, something that usually helped me started working against me.

It was exhausting.

So yesterday, I tried an experiment.

Instead of trying to have a good day, I gave myself permission to have an okay one.

Hell, I was willing to accept meh.

That was the goal.

That evening, I went to play pickleball.

It wasn’t a great night. It wasn’t a bad night either.

It was just… okay.

At some point, I caught myself thinking:

Man, this is just an okay night.

Then it hit me.

Wait.

That was the goal.

I had set out to have an okay day, and here I was having one.

Mission accomplished.

And almost immediately, I felt myself getting happy.

Nothing about the night had changed.

Same night. Same games. Same everything.

But somehow, what had been an okay day suddenly felt like a great one.

Turns out, when I stopped chasing happiness…

it found me.