It landed on my Facebook timeline again.
“Becoming happy is a choice!”
Really? — I asked the meme glowing on my screen.
If I can choose happiness, shouldn’t it be as easy as snapping a finger and chanting — I Choose To Become Happy?
But unfortunately, happiness is not an option in a multiple choice question paper for you to choose.
So what does “Happiness is a Choice”, mean?
It sounds like just another generic, hollow, and temporary empowerment message shared on Facebook, but to be honest it’s more complicated than it seems.
. . .
Aristotle said happiness has two components, pleasure and a life well-lived. But to explain in lay terms, when you are happy you simply feel good. It is called subjective well being, a feeling of goodness that only you can feel.
But one of the biggest problems in life is that a part of this well being and happiness depends on others.
Don’t believe me? Let take some of the simplest examples.
Have you ever asked your sibling for a glass of water? What did you feel when they refused it?
Have you ever tried to tell something to your partner and what did you feel when they simply dissed your opinion?
Have you ever worked so hard on a project, but your boss didn’t acknowledge you? Or worse, had he given the credit to someone else? What did you feel when you didn’t get the self-esteem that you expected?
If you are someone like me, in such a condition, you’d feel angry and sad, but what is the reason for your anger and sadness?
External forces
Yes, the external forces made you sad, that you wouldn’t have any power to control.
How your sibling treats you, how your partner listens to you, and how your boss acknowledges you are none in your capacity to control. It’s at their discretion to control.
However, what you can control is your reaction to them aka the sadness and anger you have now. Because they originated in your head as a reaction.
This is the place you have a choice.
More than choosing to be happy, choosing not to be sad is important.
You can choose to ignore whatever the bad feelings you have, and you can choose to assume a feeling, that would make you feel better.
Sounds hard?
Let’s learn a new thinking pattern.
When, your sibling refused to give you a glass of water,
Try to think, he or she must be tired or they were watching their favorite game. It’s not fair to call them out.
When, your partner may not have had listened to you,
Try to think, they might have had a hard day at work, or the kids were pestering them the whole day and they wanted a break. So assume that, it is not right to fill their ears with your rants too.
When, your boss didn’t see your hard work,
Try to think, maybe it was because you were having a low profile, or you had to work harder, or you can improve more and show yourself.
But when, another one got the credit simply because he was licking the boss’ boots? You don’t have anything good to think about him?
Think, that the Karma/God would deal with him.
Do you get it? The simple idea is not to get anything to your head even if you have to resort to believing that the Karma/God will take care of it. You are giving away your mental burden to Karma or God. That is good. Because you are not sad anymore.
Don’t always expect people to appreciate or cherish you. Sand off those sharp thorns of injustice to a smooth ball you can play with and be happy.
Sometimes, you may not be able to choose happiness per se, but if you choose not to be sad anymore, you will realize your emotional stability is fortified.
. . .
A year ago, I saw on Facebook that all my friends were invited to a house-party except a few which including me. I initially felt sad and ignored.
But then I was curious. Why actually was I sad?
I was sad because of a party invitation I had no control over. If the party is not mine or the decision to invite is not mine why only sadness and anger should be mine? Am I going to starve to death if I don’t attend it? What a joke — I told myself. And soon I wasn’t sad anymore, and I simply moved on.
A few days later, the friend who hosted the house party called me and said that he is about to leave the country, and he didn’t invite me because I was living quite far away and didn’t want to bother me. It was true. I lived in four cities away. Had he invited me, I would have been in a dilemma on how to travel the 2.5-hour distance.
See! There was a genuine reason he didn’t invite me. It would have been such a waste of time, had I spent my time wallowing in misery.
. . .
Life is intriguing and the more we depend our happiness expecting other people to make us happy, we would be losing control over our feelings.
Soon I learnt to I cut the umbilical cord between my happiness and other people by stopping to expect things from them. Be it a glass of water, 10 minutes of time, the credit for a project or even more, nobody could make me sad anymore.
For an extra step, I presumed that everyone is going to disappoint me anyways, so even before they attempted to make me sad or disappointed I was emotionally ready for it.
That did me one good thing too, because now when someone does help me or makes me happy I consider it a bonus. It makes me feel like a kid who expected bitter medicine, but got ice cream instead.
. . .
In Conclusion,
Becoming happy may not be a choice, but the choice not to be sad is definitely one. If we let other people affect how we feel happiness, we would become emotional slaves of external forces. Believe in and stand for yourself. You don’t need anyone’s acceptance or validation to live your life happily.
Stop expecting people to be good to you because you are good to them. Because as the cliché goes, a lion wouldn’t stop eating you, because you don’t eat him.
However I’m afraid, none of us living in this world is free from negative thoughts. Therefore there would be times that you cannot stop being sad. At such a time, let your sadness overflow, and once you are over, just be done with it and rise with a smile again.
Because once you understand the power of choosing not to be sad, you gain emotional independence and it can take you anywhere you want.
—
This post was previously published on Change Becomes You.
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want a deeper connection with our community, please join us as a Premium Member today.
Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Unsplash