Quote:
Originally Posted by DCHound
A lot of fascinating opinions on this thread, I love to read where other people are coming from.
Deserve…well in my mind, there’s deserve as a karmic event then non-deserve as a non-karmic event.
If you buy into karma (not meaning reincarnation, but cause-and-effect in a literal sense), then, one would have to engage in some type of behavior/belief system in order to “deserve” an outcome. Ergo, living an unhealthy lifestyle would mean that, no, you don’t deserve to be healthy and happy. And vice versa.
However, if you opt to live outside the karmic boundaries, or no more than tangential to them, you can then live a life where, there’s no “deserve.” Of anything. Cause-and-effect cease to exist. Sounds impossible right? It’s not, actually. It just takes a strong mind to live in that state. It’s possible to choose to step out of karma…if you believe you can.
I moved into this state last year, when I began this journey. If I looked back at my life as it was prior to this, and thought I deserved/didn’t deserve something because of past actions, then I’d still be 370 lbs, drunk, stoned, for all practical purposes—not really alive. All the dieting in the world ain’t gonna do a thing if I let myself remain trapped in a cycle of who did what to whom, who’d I hurt, who hurt me…I had to step outside of that. There may or may not be a larger karmic bond enveloping me…if so, I choose not to see it. Or participate in it.
So, in my humble opinion, deserve simply doesn’t exist anymore. YMMV.
AMEN, sister...
The past doesn't exist, because it is history. History is a record of previous actions, but it doesn't exist. We can learn from it. But we can't LIVE it because it's done, over, gone...
The future doesn't exist, because it is fantasy. We don't know WHAT will happen. We know what we would LIKE to have happen, but we really don't know what is around the corner. Maybe the lottery! Maybe a bus in the wrong lane!! No one KNOWS. Now, you can do everything in your power to have a great "tomorrow" (planning, setting goals, networking and so on) but you really don't have any control over what tomorrow will REALLY bring.
ALL we have is RIGHT NOW. So why not make the best of it and live in the NOW? Make the best choices that you can for you RIGHT NOW. DECIDE to live your BEST life, because you can't have a redo of the past, and you don't know what you'll see tomorrow. And day by day, those best choices add up and will give you the best chance of a great future.
So to answer your question, do you "deserve" to be happy is perhaps not a reasonable thing to ask. I think some more important things for you to think about are "WHY am I choosing to be miserable right now? What good or purpose is that serving me? WHY am stopping myself from being the best that I can be right now because of the past, which I can't alter nor change? Why am I afraid of being my best right now?" Because you DO have a choice, you know...
Kira