The Happiness Habit

The other night I had a talk with a friend who is probably one of the smartest women I have ever met. She called to say that she could see me going down a path which was clearly the wrong one. She asked me a few simple questions. She pointed out a few hard truths. She told me a story of courage and positivity and then she apologized for taking the liberty to preach to me. I appreciated all she had said – I appreciated the candour as well as the spirit of actually caring enough to tell me what she did.

The first question she asked me was why I did not let the past stay in the past. The second was why I simply did not love myself at all? She knows about most of my good and bad phases and is perfectly right in saying that I took comfort in unhappiness – that it had become my default state because I had been so since a child. She thought an intelligent woman should be able to take charge of her life to the extent that she chooses to be happy every single day no matter what. True, life was never easy for anyone and I had more than enough on my plate – not many people would be able to manage the way I have. But that was the catch; I managed to get by – I did not strive or choose to be happy every single day. The problem with not loving my very own self was that I tended to let myself be walked over, blamed and in general, saddled with others’ guilt, often for actions that were not mine. I also tended to back off from any arguments and allow people to have their way even when I was in the right. But most importantly I simply labelled myself as a person who had to put in too much effort to be happy when it wasn’t, according to my friend, actually hard at all.

I have seen enough people around me who seem to have it easy and I have felt somewhat resentful that only a chosen few go through tough times over and over again whereas others are lucky enough to go through a hard phase perhaps once or twice in their lifetime. But I realize that it is not for me to know that. S has pointed out to me more than once that everyone has their own issues – it matters not how it appears or what sort of an act is put on for the world, people have problems of some magnitude or the other. It is up to each one to take things in their stride as best as they can. It is up to every individual to decide to hold on to happiness instead of giving in to despair. I thought of another friend of ours whose life has been riddled with difficulties that made me break down when I heard of it. Yet another pal is perhaps the most positive person I have ever met – he can smile despite going through phases that would pull down another man. No one can ever gauge the depth of another’s pain or difficulty. No one should trivialize someone else’s emotions. No one should assume that you can truly understand – the best someone who cares can offer is empathy and maybe a heartfelt hug.

I am still not quite sure how one manages to hold on to happiness when things go wrong continuously but a sense of gratitude is great to obtain perspective. No matter how dark things appear, there will be a few things you can be thankful for – one of those things should be yourself. I have vowed to myself that I will make happiness as much of a habit as I can. Knowing me there will be days when I forget that but it never hurts to try and it truly never hurts to find some space in your heart for yourself.