323. unaware

If you aren’t aware that you’re unhappy, you aren’t going to do anything about it. You’re just a fish, living its life in an ocean of water, with no concept of what “wet” is. You’re unaware. 

Until you become aware that you’re uncomfortable (or wet), you’re going to stay in a place of complacency and stagnancy because you’re okay with the environment you find yourself in. Some internal mechanism continues to manage your perception of what is normal and acceptable to you, which keeps you from tuning into the reality of what is happening around you.

The very small things that would otherwise alert you to problems within an unfamiliar environment have become blunted, and therefore a reason to pay attention. Unhappiness needs to be recognized, felt, and made aware of, otherwise why would you want to change? Start to focus on the small things; Have you been clinching your jaw? Is your heart constantly racing? Are you easily stressed or anxious? The body holds a lot of signals, but if you’re not tuned into them, they can’t disrupt you from the normalcy that you’ve become accustomed to.

It’s not easy to strip away the layers of what has become normal and uncover how you really feel, but it is essential for real change to take place. I think a lot of the time we get so used to a certain way of living that we forget what happiness feels like. The sooner we can recognize the signals our body is giving off, the sooner we can realize that what we’ve become used to is no longer serving us and make the necessary changes.