My six year old recently explained the elaborate rewards system for his classroom to me. They use colored hair bands to mark off good behavior, and once you accumulate three or more, you get pennies to be used on Friday for the treasure chest.
Awesome, right? We want our kids to be rewarded for good behavior, right?
I don’t. I want my children to be kind and considerate because it feels good for them to give to others and to make others feel good. “Good behavior” (whatever that means – and that’s a whole other blog post!) should be its own reward. [Side note: I totally end up rewarding my kids this way on occasion. But as a theoretical concept, I disagree with it. Just making sure I’m not pelted with tomatoes here.]
Are you waiting for your reward?
But the larger problem with this rewards system, the problem that I see in my own life and in the lives of my clients and friends, is that we have built these systems of rewards into our lives, and they end up creating a perpetual dissatisfaction. We are always waiting for that outside validation in order to tell us that we are good people and that we have arrived at our destination – and only then is it our turn to claim to the rewards from the treasure chest.
What’s in your treasure chest?
We end up never feeling as if we’ve gotten there, though. It’s never Treasure Chest Friday in adult world. And if the treasure chest contains our happiness, then we’re really screwed. Because most of us are still waiting for this external sequence of events to tell us that we are allowed to be happy. We think things like, “Once the kids are in school, once I make x number of dollars, once I retire, once we have more money, once we pay off the house, once I have more time, once this happens…then I’ll be happy, then I’ll pursue my dreams. Then I’ll go after what it is that I truly want in this lifetime.”
We may even be thinking things like “Once I’ve learned all of my lessons, or once I’ve achieved good karma, or done enough good works, or gotten through therapy, or worked through my issues, or healed all of my past wounds…then I’ll be allowed to follow my heart.”
But what is there isn’t a lesson to be learned? What if you were allowed to be happy, right now, no matter what shitty things you might have done in the past? What if you can choose happiness even if you haven’t learned all of your lessons? What if you could follow the career path of your choosing, even if you haven’t paid off the house?
Life isn’t meant to be one long lesson:
I truly believe that while we were sent here to Earth to learn and grow and experience all that we can, that doesn’t mean that there is some magical end point in the journey that says “Okay, now you’ve learned your lesson. Now you’re allowed to be happy.” Nope. We don’t need to wait until our life or our path has been packaged up neatly with a big red bow in order for us to choose happiness.
No one’s handing out gold stars today:
And who would we want to give out those stars anyway? Who is allowed to judge us? God? Our spouses, in-laws, parents, teachers, pastors, priests, gurus? Um, hopefully not. We are the only ones who are truly judging us and whose happiness we can ultimately control. So we need to go out and claim our own rewards. Build our own treasure chest, fashion our own gold stars.
Choose to have those things and experiences that you absolutely love in your life, each and every day. And if you don’t know what you love, start by asking the universe (God/Spirit/Source) to bring those ideas to you. Right now, today.
Ideal Self:
Another way to get in touch with what you want is by doing the ideal life/self exercise. Journal or write for ten to fifteen minutes about the you of the future in an area of your life that you feel needs some help (relationships, career, hobbies, etc.). Put yourself six months, a year, or five years in the future and just write without editing about how it feels to be you, what you’re doing, how happy you are as you go about doing these things, what the environment looks/sounds/feels/smells like. Be as sensory as possible, focusing on the amazingness of your future life. And no editing! See what comes up.
And just keep remembering that you’ve already earned that gold star!
Let me know in the comments what it is that you’re waiting for in order to be happy or to follow your dreams. How are you asking for more in your life?
