find my bliss, then follow it (has anyone seen my bliss?)

I have been spending a lot of time lately doing things that I have been putting off—reorganizing bookshelves, painting the bathroom, DUSTING, unpacking the random stray boxes that seem to hang around (when did we move anyway?) and I have noticed this kind of serenity creeping into my life.

Housework in the past has been something I do with the direst of trepidation, grudgingly and easily distracted from my purpose. Let’s face it: my main purpose for housework in the past has been to keep from living in a toxic waste dump.

But I have been spending more and more time doing the little details like dusting and scrubbing baseboards and polishing and waxing floors and I am starting to feel more and more … calm, accomplished, IN CONTROL?! Dare I say—blissful?! Is bliss so easily attainable as to be found in the simplicity of a well-ordered existence? Is my bliss truly to be found in such out-of-the-way and unexpected places as my perceived most-unblissful occupations?

I know this one—it’s easy. I guess I spend too much time fretting about “what if it doesn’t work out?” What if I can’t support myself doing what I really want to do?”

It looks so easy when other people do it, but I grew up thinking I had to sell my soul in order to survive. Either you are happy or you are successful, but you can’t have both. I waste so much energy fretting, I have nothing left for being blissful sometimes.