Life is Good
And You're Allowed to Feel That Way
Did you ever feel good about life - and immediately pulled yourself back?
With everything going on in the world, “good” at times seems not like how we should feel. Being informed about what’s happening on our planet, how could I consider myself caring, and then sit here and feel good?
To me, at least, this type of self-constraint was very common in recent years. But today’s post is here to tell you:
You’re allowed to feel good about life.
In my recent post about the ecological grief that came with weighing my decision for or against motherhood, I highlighted the importance of allowing our heavy emotions about the ongoing planetary crisis. Posts like this one are here to highlight something equally important: allowing our light ones, too.
If we don’t look away, it can be easy to harbour the subconscious belief that we would ‘owe nature’ our grief and suffering, as redemption for being human on this earth, or a proof that we care. In the leadup to my burnout working for the climate transition, I often felt as if it was somehow wrong to feel joyful, whole, and complete in the face of all I knew. For some of us, beliefs of being undeserving of true happiness run deep, originating in wounds from times we barely remember. But these days, the toll of being “human” can add a particularly complex layer to this.
Even in the 90s, when the climate crisis was still something that felt like a “niche topic”, I remember growing up with this vague sense of “the earth is not doing well, and it’s the fault of humans”. Unimaginable how it must feel to kids today, at times when some believe we shouldn’t even reproduce. Living at the mercy of our fossil-fuel-based societies, it is almost impossible to do anything in life without causing further damage, or so it seems. Getting to work, ordering a meal, or purchasing new clothes almost inevitably has a cost to the wider world attached to it. The easiest way out, it seems: ignore it. But to those of us who are done with denial, guilt often seems the only alternative.
But it’s not.
It is precisely our discontent, our wanting things to be different than they are, our wanting to be elsewhere than right here, our wanting to have more than we do, that moves us to create havock. Beneath the reluctance to lean into the fullness of our joy - something some of us might believe they’ve even lost for good - is based on a basic fallacy: that we need a reason to be happy.
It isn’t love - for other humans, animals, plants, or landscapes - if it requires us to constantly feel bad for them. Compassion and joy are not mutually exclusive. The truth is, at times we’ll feel sad, so sad with those who suffer. And at other times, we’ll feel a breeze in our face, or hear the laughter of a friend, and feel like life is perfect. And it’s okay.
Living in the 21st century comes with very unique, unprecedented burdens. But it doesn’t have to come with the price of a miserable life. What do we fight for, what do we fear to lose, if we can’t even enjoy it now? All that is still good in the world - and there’s so, so much of it - is here to resource us. So let’s let it.