When Just Being Happy Seems Like a Consolation Prize

4/8/2012

I woke up this morning and realized that I woke up happy. It felt empty. Like a consolation prize. I don't know if I can adequately describe the feeling. I really am happy today. Truly happy. It just feels hollow, like the happiness is a veneer, a facade. Is it? I don't think so. I feel like just being happy isn't enough. I'm not satisfied with just happy. I need my life to have meaning and purpose. While I have found meaning and purpose blogging and administering to my website, I didn't realize how much I missed doing 'good works'.

I am going to do a lot of thinking on this. I had thought, before the PTSD, that I was going to lead a life of service to my country. I need to find a way to incorporate serving others back into my life. When I am living a life of service to others, I feel more than just happy, I feel...full. I desperately need to feel that way again. It's different that the amazing feelings I get when I look at my daughter. I think part of why I feel this way is I want to be my daughter's hero, for a reason other than I'm her daddy.

I think I am going to explore this. Maybe there is more that I can do around the community. Maybe there is a need that isn't being met that I can fill. I don't know. I need to talk to my wife about this and see what she thinks.

I wish everyone a Happy Easter. I hope everyone enjoys time with family. I know I will.

5 Comments

Jill

4/8/2012 02:17:53 am

Max,
I know exactly what you are talking about. Helping others helps us as well, when we help to heal others it is also healing ourselves. You are doing this through your site and blogs already!! You are a gift to the world and whatever you choose to do give back, know that their lives will be better just from knowing you. You are God's lightworker and a very strong man....to want to help humanity to heal when you yourself have been given a huge burden. I honor you, your mission, and your courageness! Your daughter is blessed to have you as a father, being you is enough!!!!!! Be Well.

Max Harris link

4/8/2012 02:20:26 am

Jill,
Thank you. It means a lot to hear that. Have a great day. I know I will!

Cindy

4/9/2012 04:36:44 pm

I've just recently started reading your blog, and already it's helped me alot. Everything you write, I could have written. Thank you.
(maybe this is what you were meant to do- either online or at the VA?)

4/10/2012 12:38:29 am

Cindy,

I would love it if I could do this for a living. I am trying to make that happen, but paying bills has got to come first. I want to lead a life of service again. That much is for certain.

Elaina - PTSDisNormal.com link

4/10/2012 11:29:40 am

What you wrote in this post resonates with the deepest core of my being.

Have you read MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING by Viktor Frankl, MD, PhD? I read it recently, and my eyes were opened. Of the literally thousands of books I have read in my lifetime, it is the best, or very nearly so. I only wish I had read it decades ago.

I highly recommend that you read that book, I think it will help to enlighten you on the lack you are experiencing in your life. It certainly has done that for me. Dr. Frankl was a medical doctor and a psychiatrist. He was Jewish, and spent almost 3 years incarcerated in the Nazi concentration camps. His experiences in those camps closely mirrors, in a lot of ways, the traumas that caused my own PTSD. How he survived when most didn't, and how he found profound meaning in his life, when most would have succumbed to what we now know is PTSD, is... ah... words fail me. Go read it, you'll see. :)
Elaina

Living with PTSD:
Every Day is a New Day