Life is a rollercoaster, and the best times to throw your hands into the air are on the downhill slopes.
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I work with a man who insists, every day, that he is a star. He doesn’t think of himself as a celebrity or famous person, but of a luminary in his own life. He is proud of himself and of his life, and insists that he is a star every day. It encourages him.
Let me make a side note now.
I’m not going to lecture you on working hard to achieve your goals, and I’m not going to tear into the millennial generation for wanting the world without working for it.
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We all want to fix ourselves. We want to do better. We want to eat healthier and exercise. We want to quit smoking and drink less. We want to not live off of caffeine and get more sleep. Students want better grades, employees want a promotion, employers want better employees, and bosses want to retire. We want more money and less stress; more happiness and less sorrow. Better clothes would be nice, and they would look best in a new car.
It’s easy to want all of these things when we are surrounded by other people who seem to have them, and yet those people only want more.
I’m not going to lecture you on working hard to achieve your goals, and I’m not going to tear into the millennial generation for wanting the world without working for it. I only want to offer a new perspective; after all, that’s all happiness is.
Ultimately, we choose to be happy. That may be hard to swallow, but it’s the truth. Life may (and will) beat you unmercifully. It will kick your ass right into the ground, and then bury you alive. The key is to hit back harder.
I am, generally speaking, a happy person. I live by the words of Timon and Pumbaa. However, just like that dynamic duo, I am not without my own faults. I am probably the worst procrastinator in the world and I am painfully complacent. This has caused me to fail multiple classes in school. I do good work when I put in the effort, but that often fails to happen. While I fail these classes, I bounce from one awful, bottom-rung job to another, never progressing. Comfort sets in and I just lose inspiration and drive. I often wonder how my extremely successful fiancée can bear to watch me put myself in these situations.
It is very easy to get discouraged in this world. It happens to me all of the time. I often forget about my life philosophy of “no worries.”
In the face of adversity, regardless of his daily struggle to function normally, he insists that he is a star with a huge smile on his face.
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This brings me back to the gentleman who thinks of himself as a star. I work with individuals with developmental and physical disabilities. The man who thinks so highly of himself is disabled both developmentally and physically. He uses a wheelchair for mobility and interacts socially on the level of a child, despite his advanced age. However, while he is disabled in body and mind, he is not disabled in spirit. In the face of adversity, regardless of his daily struggle to function normally, he insists that he is a star with a huge smile on his face.
It becomes difficult to be discouraged when someone who can’t even care for themselves has such a positive outlook. Another man I work with is in a similar situation. He utilizes a walker and is fairly low functioning developmentally. He loves books. His room is filled with them, and one of his favorite things to do is look through them and buy new ones.
This man can’t read. He looks through his books all of the time, asking staff to read some parts, or to explain pictures to him, but he has no understanding of the words he is looking at. Even still, he has an undying love for books and for learning things from them.
We all have reasons to be unhappy, many of which are quite reasonable. Do not let them keep you down.
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The people I work with struggle with things we do every day, such as bathing, dressing, eating, even just relaxing. Some of the basic civil rights we enjoy and take for granted are taken from them. Many of them are not allowed to vote in elections. Many of them can’t ever get married nor have sex.
They will never work a regular job or earn a livable wage. They are forever dependent, and the system only discourages independence.
I don’t want to get too political, so I will stop there. I only want to provide perspective. Even as I sit here writing this; if I get hungry, I get up and go get something to eat. Many of these individuals cannot do that, and yet, happiness can still be found.
Simply choosing to happy isn’t quite as easy as I have described. We all have reasons to be unhappy, many of which are quite reasonable. Do not let them keep you down. Things can always be worse and they can always be better. Life is a rollercoaster, and the best times to throw your hands into the air without worry are on the downhill slopes.
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Photo: Getty Images