REPOSTED FROM "15 Things Happy People Do Differently":

5. MEANING vs. AMBITION.  They do the things they do because of the meaning it brings into their lives and because they get a sense of purpose by doing so. They understand that “Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life” like Wayne Dyer puts it, and they care more about living a life full of meaning rather than, what in our modern society we would call, living a successful life.

The irony here is that most of the time they get both, success and meaning, just because they choose to focus on doing the things they love the most and they always pursue their heart desires. They are not motivated by money; they want to make a difference in the lives of those around them and in the world.

Lately I have been questioning the "addictions" I have. To list a few, I might say I am addicted to coffee, cigarettes, sweets, and men.  These are things I turn to on a daily basis for comfort. But are they really addictions, or simply rituals that I perform out of habit? 
I lean toward the latter.


addictionnoun1 his heroin addiction dependency, dependence, habit, problem.2 a slavish addiction to fashion devotion to, dedication to, obsessionwith, infatuation with, passion for, love of, mania for, enslavement to.
ritualnounan elaborate civic ritual ceremony, rite, ceremonial, observance; service,sacrament, liturgy, worship; act, practice, custom, tradition,convention, formality, procedure, protocol.
I am not a slave to my habits. I practice them daily out of obligation to my own sense of identity. These rituals of drinking coffee, smoking, eating sweets, and flirting with men are engrained into my daily behavior. They remind me of who I am: who I think myself to be. But I can change them if I so choose. A friend once told me that any change you wish to see in yourself should become "daily practice." One day at a time, you can change your rituals and therefore change your identity.No addiction is unconquerable.
"I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."from "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley

Restless

My biggest fear is losing an inch of my freedom.


I have known one too many a girl who surrendered her own ambitions to fulfill a man's. I have felt one too many times the grasp of an institution pulling me back, ordering me to live by its rules. I have run from one too many relationships, platonic and romantic alike, fearing that I might lose a part of myself if I let someone in too close.


Each time I perform, I feel a surge of energy as I surrender myself to whatever might happen once I enter that scary, mysterious place called the stage. In my life, though, I will do almost anything to avoid that feeling of surrender. I want control. I need control.


I need control so badly that I will destroy anything that seeks to take it away from me.
This small town tries to keep me from doing big things? I'll move to Dallas.
The law says I can't drink until I'm 21? I'll get a fake i.d.
Some boy wants to make me his girlfriend? I'll stop returning his calls.


Perhaps this need to control is what led me to directing. I feel at peace when I am in complete control of a rehearsal, deciding exactly what needs work when and how to go about doing that work. It's HEAVEN!


If only this quality could have an off switch, I would be a perfectly productive, happy human being, rather than a twenty-one-year-old workaholic.

From "Songs of Myself" by Walt Whitman

A child said What is the grass? 

fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green

stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see

and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the

vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,

Growing among black folks as among white,

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I

receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,

It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,

It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,

It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out

of their mothers' laps,

And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,

Darker than the colorless beards of old men,

Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,

And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for

nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and

women,

And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken

soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?

And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,

And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the

end to arrest it,

And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

[taken from princeton.edu]