Bryan Reeves believes the best gift you can give anyone is your own happiness.
___
Surely by now you’ve discovered how exhausting it can be trying to make someone else happy.
The best gift life ever gave me was a girlfriend I really wanted to be with who for all kinds of reasons couldn’t be happy with me no matter what I did to try and make her happy. I’m not saying I did things perfectly, but I constantly bent myself this way and that to be who she wanted me to be, but who I didn’t want to be. I would too often say yes when I wanted to say no, or no when my chest ached to say yes.
The result?
Two unhappy people instead of just one.
If I had been responsible enough to take care of my own happiness first, at least there would have been one satisfied person in our relationship.
A happy you is simply good for the planet.
The ripple effects of your own authentic happiness leaking out into the universe are infinitely greater than the sticky ego satisfaction your husband, child, boss, father, girlfriend, etc. gets as you make yourself suffer for their sake.
|
The ripple effects of your own authentic happiness leaking out into the universe are infinitely greater than the sticky ego satisfaction your husband, child, boss, father, girlfriend, etc. gets as you make yourself suffer for their sake.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t look constantly to see how we can delight those around us. Quite the opposite.
We can literally delight the ‘hell’ out of the world around us!
But we’ll never delight anyone from the space of our own unhappiness, suffering, dissatisfaction, and inauthenticity—we’ll certainly never delight ourselves that this way.
You can sacrifice your own joy for the sake of another. Just be aware what it really costs you, not to mention what it costs everyone around you including the person you’re sacrificing for; you’re depriving everyone of experiencing you in your deliciously joyous state.
A happy you is just good for the entire planet.
It’s truly the greatest gift you can ever give.
Photo—bp6316/Flickr