Which way to the Candy Castle?

**Disclaimer: If you have never played the game Candy Land, not only are you kind of a loser, but this blog might not make much sense to you. But you should read it anyways.**

I just got finished re-reading the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Well kind of, does it count as re-reading if I only got through "Eat" the first time? (and also what does that say about me??) Anyways, thanks to fancy technology, I was able to highlight everything I found inspiring as I was reading the book on my kindle (without actually having a highlighter anywhere in my house). There was so much in this book that I really connected with, but there was one concept that I found to be pretty awesome.

"People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will  maybe descent upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it."

What a slap in the face of reality. It's not just people who think that, it's ME. Like one day I will stumble across some crazy amazing opportunity which will lead me down a magical road through a sparkly door into the world of infinite happiness. That is so not how it works. Happiness isn't something you just stumble upon because it's your lucky day. I started thinking about the game Candy Land. In the game every turn you pick a card, and the card tells you what to do, which way to go; and you do it, no questions asked. Then if you get lucky you get Queen Frostine, and after just one turn your just steps away from the candy castle (also known as the world of infinite happiness, I mean it's a castle full of candy, come on!). If you're unlucky you can work your way one square at a time to get to that stupid castle, just to get sent all the way back to Jolly (that happy gumdrop freak) in the gumdrop forest at the beginning of the game. You were just a few squares from the castle doors, and now your back wandering through the forest eating gumdrops to make you feel better. Then there are the really unlucky who get stuck on those darn black dots praying for a double red so you can get outta there already and high tail it to hang out with the candy king and his eligible (and hot) son in the freaking candy castle. The bottom line here? Candy Land is all about luck, and that's just not how life works.

So if the great quest to happiness isn't like Candy Land, what is it? How can we find that magical castle door? Well first of all, we don't just pick a card, and report directly to the square we are assigned to. We make our own decisions, chose our own roads, our own opportunities. We decide if we want to stay in that dead end job because the pay is good, or do what it is we really love because the pay sucks but the reward in terms of happiness is through the roof. We decide if we want to stay in the relationship because we like the companionship, or struggle through being alone to get to the happiness somewhere else. Elizabeth goes on to say that it doesn't stop when we get to that sparkly door of happiness. She says "you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will leak away your innate contentment." Whoa, I don't want my innate contentment leaking anywhere.I think this might be the biggest challenge of all. Once you realize life isn't like Candy Land, you can do what you need to do, you can start trying to make the decisions you need to make to get to the point where you truly are happy. But, if you don't work hard to maintain that happiness, it will all go down the drain. So the challenge here isn't just working toward happiness, it's working ON happiness. Working to keep your happiness alive, to keep yourself afloat on the raging rapids that is your happiness. I may be a month late on this one, but that's my new years resolution. I'm gonna start working on happiness, and never give up on it.