Im happy but there is a heavy feeling of sadness in my heart that I just can't remove. Why am I like this?

When I stopped trying to force myself to be something I am not, I gave myself the freedom of being who I am.

For much of my adult life, I interpreted this sadness as something being wrong - with either myself or my life in general.

It’s difficult to put into words exactly what caused what, but to the best of my ability to describe it, I felt as if my will to keep fighting was beaten right out of me.

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Now, this may sound like a story of failure and giving up, but it’s actually a story of liberation.

So I finally threw my hands up and said something to the tune of “fuck it, since I can't seem to change, I’ll just be whatever I am then.”

The sadness was still there.

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What most people don’t know unless they’ve looked more closely is that there is also an element of deep, profound sadness that has always been with me since as long as I can remember.

It’s impossible to overstate the freedom and peace I discovered, and I realized the only one who had been keeping those from me was… me and my imagined standards and expectations for how I had imagined I should be.

I was tired of trying and failing.

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What I am trying to say is that when you stop trying to change yourself into something you are not, you give yourself the gift of discovering yourself as you already are.

It’s the most beautiful and liberating thing in the world.

You are like me, then.

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Most people that know me would probably describe me as a social, happy, and somewhat quirky person with a twisted sense of humor.

You are the masterpiece you came here to discover.

And the sadness?

I keep hitting my front tooth with my glass while bringing it to my mouth unintentionally and the nerve in the tooth keeps pulsating. Does hitting the tooth like this cause damage enough that I could lose the tooth?

Your job is not to be the manager of your life, but the one who discovers yourself fully.

It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I finally fell out of that ferris wheel of trying and failing to fix myself.

It’s here now, writing to you.

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This interpretation lead me on a path of self improvement, to fix what I considered to be “wrong” with myself.

In the absence of a should, I was free to be as I am.

But unlike before, there is no more resistance to the sadness.

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It’s still here.

So if you are sad - like me - then be sad.

Without resistance, sadness has a sense of beauty and depth I cannot find otherwise in life.

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I was tired of fighting.

Be who you already are.

Needless to say, my failed attempts to fix my sadness simply brought me more pain and suffering.

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But no matter what I read or practiced, I could never make the sadness budge for longer than a few fleeting moments - and even then, it was likely due to me being distracted from the sensation of sadness rather than anything actually shifting.

I had run out of hope.