Finding happiness before the story “looks right.”

In my last blog, I talked about what it feels like to be stuck in the middle of the rebound—that awkward space where your old life is gone, but the new one hasn’t fully formed yet.

This one is about something even trickier:

How do you find happiness when the picture of your life does not look like the promise you’re holding onto?

Not just survival.

Not “I’m okay.”

I’m talking about real joy, real peace, real gratitude—in the middle.

The Promise vs. The Picture

The promise always looks clean in your head.

The business scales.

The project closes.

The family stabilizes.

The land is developed.

The vision comes together.

But the picture?

The picture has unpaid invoices.

Relational fallout.

Missed deadlines.

Lost contracts.

Legal papers.

Family tension.

And people who quietly backed away when things fell apart.

Sometimes the promise and the picture sit in the same room and don’t speak to each other.

You’re holding a word that says “Rebuild,”

but you’re looking at rubble, receipts, and disappointment.

That gap—between your expectation and your reality—is where disappointment tries to move in and unpack its bags.