What's gonna make me happy

I often hear many people lamenting over true happiness not being in their lives. I like to ask them a simple question; What is going to make you happy? Generally it takes a while for them to answer, but occasionally the person knows exactly what they want. In many cases the person is seeking an object or a person, usually the attention of a person. In both cases I like to continue to ask questions, probing deeper so that we, but most importantly the other person, can understand the value they are placing on the person/thing they want. I believe that understanding the value of whatever you desire is paramount to truly enjoying it once you get it.

Understanding value is crucial because it allows us to have realistic expectations for the outcomes we earn in our lives.

For instance, I once called myself being in love. I had a fiancé that made me feel good about myself because so many other people appreciated her attractiveness, both physically and emotionally. Because so much of our relationship was based on immature feelings and actions it didn’t last; however once our relationship was over I missed my ex tremendously and I vowed to get her back. I eventually figured out that what I valued most about our relationship was how good I felt about how everyone else was impressed by her as opposed to truly valuing the mutual love, respect, and admiration that comes with a positive, mature, and sustainable relationship. Eventually after months of languishing and agonizing over not being with my ex I had a small chance at reconciliation; and I found the idea of reconciliation so anticlimactic at that point that I had no desire at all to even explore the option. It was anticlimactic because over the time that I was missing our past relationship, and doing everything in my power to try to get it back together, I had actually matured, and dealt with a lot of the personal issues that I was facing that made our relationship immature and unsustainable in the beginning. The true happiness that I had gotten from that relationship was no longer of value to me; so what I knew would make me happy couldn’t even come close to satisfying me because I didn’t really want it, didn’t need it, and most importantly, it wasn’t for me.

That is an extended short version of a long story; but the gist is that until you take time to truly assess why you, and you alone, are pursuing the happiness you are going after, you are very likely to be running a rat race. And humans can’t possibly be truly happy, euphoric even, at the end of a race for rats.

Just think hard about what is the source of your happiness; if you can easily smile about it, you’re probably on the right track, if not, you may wanna keep on thinking (well, you should keep thinking either way; positive honest thoughts are your friend).

Why doesn’t everyone act like they want to feel good?

I had stopped blogging for awhile because I had become so apathetic about so many things around me. I have always had an intense desire to make the people of our world smile in some way. And as I became apathetic and content to enjoy my exceedingly excellent and awesome life while everyone else did whatever they did I was unable to do so. Some will say the call was this and the call was that, I will just say that I changed my mind. That’s one of the great things about our minds; they can be changed and molded as long as we are willing to keep learning and living.

Why doesn’t everyone act like they want to feel good?

I had heard so many different people talk about how important it was to be happy and enjoy your life, but I saw very few of those same people actually doing the things that they spoke about. That is to say I didn’t see folks actually trying to be happy. I saw them trying to do this and trying to do that; trying to finish school, or trying to pay the rent, or trying to get to work, or trying to get closer to God, just trying to do anything they could. But I didn’t sense that they were truly enjoying the things they were trying to do; and the usual refrain was that they were just doing the best they could and eventually their time would come and they would be happy one day. I was only around 5 or 6 years old when started to notice this so I had extremely limited life experience to engage in fully accurate analysis of these things that I was observing, but I had feelings, and I didn’t feel that people really believed most of the stuff they were saying about one day it would be their time; I could see it in their eyes. Their eyes looked weary and tired, and they looked like they were hoping that their time would come one day, they really wanted it to come, but they didn’t really believe that it would; not enough to make it actually happen at least.

I write all of this to say that we need to first figure out what our time is? What are you looking to do in your life? What is going to truly give you happiness? And I mean the kind of happiness that people feel when their team wins the big game in the last moment, true euphoria. Not the happiness that comes from a comparison that is not relevant in any meaningful way.

A lot to digest all at once so I’ll stop for now; but I’ll continue a lot more often going forward.

Just questions to ask, and hopefully to poke and prod my fellow human brothers and sisters to stop living for everyone and everything else, and start working toward happiness.