What's your capacity for delight?

I was reading “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron and I came across a quote that caught my eye.

The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

And something just clicked for me. It takes a lot for me to be happy.

It could be seen in a positive or negative way. I want to be able to pay attention to the small things. But it is good to have a higher standard and always aim for more. The quality of friends, partner, career, and lifestyle can be good if your standards are high. Although, no matter how peaceful your life may be, you will be unhappy if you don’t pay attention.

This is a bittersweet topic for me. I know I am picky when it comes to friends, gifts, opportunities and experiences. I’ve dealt with some “bad” ones and now I just want to make sure that I don’t run on a trauma cycle. Thus it is hard for me to focus on the now. My focus is usually more on the future and the past. It does help me stay away from people or events that aren’t in my best interest. It has also made my intuition strong. It does not, however, save me from all negativity. I still have fights with close ones. I still face bad experiences no matter how hard I try to avoid them. I still make stupid mistakes though I know better, and at the end of the day I feel like I know nothing at all. With my standards high and my thoughts tangled, I make sure I live happy quite unhappily.

Somedays when I get upset with someone who’s close to me, I feel like an overbearing parent. Do I expect too much out of them? I know I care for them but I don’t need to nag them about each and every right step they should make. “Right” means different things for different people and sometimes they want to hear the advice/suggestion from themselves or their own experiences. All you can do is be in the present with them. I understand that it’s not right to expect so much so that I might get upset/frustrated if I see someone not cutting onions the right way or if they choose to not celebrate their birthday in the way most people seem to enjoy.

Same goes with me. Because I expect a lot and it takes a lot for me to be happy. It’s so easy to dissapoint myself and be my greatest obstacle in whatever I want to do. I believe in affirmations and its power. I also believe in negative thoughts and its power. Yet knowing all, I don’t seem to acknowledge the fact that I might have way more negative thoughts than positive ones.

It is good to have my standards high, to know what’s right from wrong, to want the best for myself and others. But it is great to be in the present, to accept your surrounding and yourself as it is. Be grateful for the “bad” and “good” experiences. Life is happening for you not to you. I want to learn to slow down. I need to stop with the “bad” and “good” labels. I want to appreciate the present as it is.

But then again, being too in the present and letting people run all over you is also not okay. Have a good standard and solid boundaries. You should aim really high because you are worth the risk. Just dont be too hard on yourself or those around you over it. Don’t be treated like an after-thought nor be grateful for beadcrumbs. This is why balance between the two is so important for genuine healthy hapiness. At the end of the day, we are humans, we are flawed, and that is beautiful. Make mistakes, it is worth the effort if it’s for harmony.

I do want to know about your experience with this. Are you more of a person who pays attention, or someone who needs a lot to be happy? When/How did you realise this? Would you want to change this about you?