Permission Slip

I've told many people this:

No one's going to give you permission to be happy.

It's true. As much as I'd like to believe that people are generally good and kind, I also admit that that's my shining naivete peeking through. People aren't generally good and kind. People don't generally think.

And generally, people who are themselves in some way discontented, will not give you (being anyone who isn't them) permission to be happy.

More specifically, you have to seek it out for yourself. You have to very explicitly decide to allow yourself to be happy, and when you finally do that, and you find happiness, you have to very specifically clutch that motherfucker like a hungry baby chimp grasping at his mom's teat and hold on for dear life, because a vast majority of people are wind, trees, and other hungry baby chimps. They're going to try to knock you off. This is just natural animal behavior.

Do. Not. Let them.

It helps to have friends and cohorts.

It helps to have people in your corner. There are those rare gems that understand how extraordinarily difficult it is to be truly happy, even as the very minutiae of day to day life seems to want to fuck with it.

I'm telling you, it's doable.

I'm telling you, as surely as the pursuit of happiness is one of our fundamental rights, it's out there.

And I'm telling you that even if no one else does, I give you permission.

Be happy.