Supposed to be Happy
When I went skydiving for the first and only time, I didn’t want a tandem jump—strapped to a jumpmaster—so that meant a full eight hours of training, and that the decision to jump was all mine. Fear grew all day through classes and videos; fitting for jumpsuit, helmet, goggles, pack; walking out to board the silver prop plane with its door-sized opening in the fuselage; takeoff and ascent to 12,500 feet; my name called; looking down at two miles of air with fear now in my throat.
All day long the fear was with me, breathlessly at the moment of decision, but once I jumped, hyperventilated through the first few seconds of acceleration, I was no longer afraid. The day’s fear, gone. I’d set in motion a sequence of events that would end the at the ground one way or another, and I couldn’t take it back. Fully committed, there was nothing left but what I was trained to do.
And enjoy the ride.
The 12 Steps of AA break the removal of our shortcomings, our obsessive-compulsive thought and behavior patterns, into two separate steps: to become entirely ready before we humbly ask God to remove them. Seemed redundant at first, but on reflection…when do we ever know we’re entirely ready to do anything? Start a workout routine or diet, marry, have a child? How did I know I was entirely ready to believe I could survive the jump? Only when I relaxed my fingers and let fall.
We have to act. Only in action do we know we’re entirely ready. And when it comes to removing the obsessive-compulsive symptoms of our lifelong fears, what keeps us from being entirely ready?
Arriving after a drive with my then four-year-old son, he jumped out of his car seat as if spring loaded, landed on the asphalt and declared, I’m happy! When I asked why he was happy, he said, You’re supposed to be happy. I’m a happy boy. Do we believe that? That happy is how we were born and our true default position? We’ve lived in fear so long, with our shortcomings so long, we’ve forgotten and made a virtue of suffering.
Until we remember we’re supposed to be happy, it’s almost impossible to become entirely ready to act, to participate with God for change.
