In the Details

“Life is not meant to be wasted.” A phrase we hear often, but too often forget to adhere to. I used to think that in order to not waste life, I always had to be chasing something. But sometimes, I would be so engulfed in reaching the end result, that I would forget the journey completely. Then I would reach the end, and wonder what the point was.

I came to Taiwan with a very simple goal…. to be with the people I love and be present for every moment of it. Sometimes, the being present part was hard, especially when the unforgiving sun would scorch my skin and all I wanted to do was be back in my air conditioned Manhattan apartment, or when tensions rose sky high in our very cozy Zhu Bei home.

Then there was the collective goal that my guru (aka my mom) and I intended for our family trip. Long story short, we set out on a mission to try and spread the word of happiness and our current obsession: positive psychology. Armed with books, videos, gratitude jars, journals, and more vegetables and fruits for juicing than you can imagine, we were determined to change lives.  With only three weeks to “chip away the excess stone,” time was definitely not our best friend.

We started out on a fully charged battery pack of motivation and intention.  As first, excitement ran high and everyone’s positive energy made our mission fairly easy to carry out. One of the first nights that I was in Taipei, us five ladies sat in a tiny café and shared a bottle of wine while sharing each of our individual life altering stories, and why we are on this journey towards a living a happier life. So the goal started out easy, then routines broke and schedules caught up with us. We started running out of time to juice in the morning, because we were already running late for the next engagement. My yoga mat stayed rolled out by my bedside, but I’d be lying if I said I was able to get on it everyday. Soon enough our fully charged battery pack was running on fumes, and the feelings of sluggish-ness started to set in. Turned out this goal wasn’t so easy to reach after all.

It was in those moments of weakness and frustration that my perspective started to shift. I started to ask “What am I missing?” And right there, in the heat, and the rich food, and the high-speed rail, and the rushing, and the talking, and the listening, and the praying, I found my answer. I was missing the details.  I was getting so caught up with how I wanted this journey to go, that I wasn’t allowing the journey to unfold on its own.

So I let go.

I let go of what I expected to happen, and just let the FLOW take over. And it was only after I let go, that things started falling into place. I began enjoying the burgers for breakfast, the gentle breeze on a muggy day, the freedom of not wearing makeup, and the three showers I was taking everyday. Mom finally acquiesced to reading “Eat, Pray, Love” and fortunately got her hands on a Chinese version. Interestingly, on my last day, Auntie Pechuan and I went looking for that book, but found “The Happiness Project” instead. It was as if the books that fell into their laps, arrived at just the right time! I found myself inserting bits of wisdom into moments that I shared with my loved ones. I discovered that this sparked their interest more than when I would dominate entire conversations with positive psychology jargon.  Turns out, this was what Dr. Tal was talking about when he talked about bridging the ‘ivory tower’ and ‘main street.’ People need to relate to the topic first before they willingly subscribe to whatever book, video, or thought you’re selling them. Otherwise, they’ll just smile and accept whatever it is you’re trying to give them, and then let it gather dust on some back shelf somewhere.

Then, just to make sure that I was fully putting my trust in the Universe, I decided to let go of the results too. This was a bit more difficult, because it meant accepting that some of my loved ones would walk away with this newfound insight, and some of them will not.  But this is necessary, because everyone has to put in the effort and do the homework. After all, everyone has to find their “David” on their own. And this “chipping away” is a lifelong process that is exciting and fun and full of … well… LIFE!

After three weeks (that passed by too quickly), two beautiful sightseeing getaways, one bout of heatstroke, and countless moments of laughter and love, I’m happy to say that I’ve accomplished my mission. I came to Taiwan with a goal to share my insights on happiness with the people I love, and I walked away learning that happiness isn’t an end result, it’s in every moment and every breath we take. It’s in the details, because God and Love are right there… in the details.