I have been speaking to a lot of people who want to leave the country. Their reasons are varied. Some mention crime. Some mention money. Concern around the South African economy and politics comes up. With most of them, they just want to get out!
I find myself saying to almost every single one of them, “happiness comes from within.”
Wherever you go in the world, you have to make it work for you.
When I was in my teens and leaving Zimbabwe, I left behind a country on the decline. I left behind, queues and queues of cars lined up at empty petrol stations waiting for fuel to be delivered. People would park their car, lock it and walk away until they had word that the fuel had arrived. Then they would go themselves, or take a staff member to sit and wait until it was their turn to fill up.
I moved to Cape Town – only member of my family in this large city of (then) 2 million people. I was in a new city, I had to make it work for me. I remember standing in the stairwell of a cold and dreary nurses’ home, looking out at unexpected falling summer rain wondering what 1983 would hold for me. At that moment, I was intensely lonely. Here I was in this wonderful city where, I was told, the grass would be greener, but I wasn’t feeling it at that moment. As I looked at the rain, the drops felt like tears in a melancholy heart.
As the many years have passed, I have learned one important lesson: You can never be happy 100% of the time. It’s just not humanly possible.
I am probably happy 80% of the time. The other 20, I’m not content. I range from irritated to impatient, melancholy to full blown miserable, serious to saddened, concerned to critical, fed up to furious – it’s all somewhere in my 20% unhappiness time.
And that’s okay!
I have 80% to hang onto!
Contentment = happiness.
If I can be content with what I have, where I live, what I do, what I look like, the future, my circumstances, I will be happy.
And that has to be learned, but the truth to finding happiness is to lean fully on our Creator.
Paul said it first,
Philippians 4:12-13
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
Paul wasn’t asking God to give him all the good stuff in life, but he was leaning on Christ through good and bad. Through that learned process he found contentment regardless of his circumstances.
And we must strive for the same. Learn the secret.
These are the days.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂