Getting Tired

Why have I always told myself that I can't be happy in the here and now. It's always been that my happiness rests in the future. In high school, my happiness was entirely dependent upon me getting out and moving on and going to college. During my freshman year in college, happiness was only attainable when I had her. Now this summer, happiness will happen when I find a job, when I have her, when I leave on my mission, when I go through the temple, when...it just goes on and on. But there's never a thought that I can be truly and indescribably happy now.
I've spent so much of my life defining happiness by whether or not I had someone to love. That's dumb. I can't define my happiness by someone else, that shouldn't happen. I should be able to be happy with or without someone else, because I should have the faith that my happiness, that any true happiness comes from a relationship with the Lord. Yet, I struggle being able to let myself be happy.
I'll be happy when I'm not as scrawny as I am...I'll be happy when I have more money...I'll be happy when I've finished my novel...I'll be happy when I'm published...I'll be happy when I have more friends...I'll be happy when whatever is that ultimate goal is achieved. But I can't be happy when I'm still trying to achieve that goal.
Those are lies. Life is about finding the happiness in the journey, because the thing is, everything is a journey. There is never an ultimate achievement, because you have to keep working always. I wanna be in shape. If you get in shape, guess what, if you don't work to stay in shape, you fall away from being in shape, and then you're back at square one. If you want more friends, then you work at it, you have to strengthen those friendships, and there's never a moment when you can just be done strengthening a friendship. The moment that happens, the friendship begins to deteriorate. If my goal is to finish my novel, that's achievable, but then there's revision, publishing, and then there's more novels in my head that want to get out. I'll never be able to stop writing. If you want to get that one person who holds your heart, it's a journey, not a destination. Once you get them, you can't just stop working for it, you've got to keep strengthening that forever...or for as long as you last.
So the real thing I have to learn is to find the joy in the journey. Define joy by strengthening the relationship with my Heavenly Father daily, and by doing the things that will make me happy. Finding joy in strengthening relationships, in working out, in, writing, in preparing for the temple and my mission.