Hi everyone,
here’s hoping you had a good weekend and you’re feeling refreshed and ready to
take on the week. If you aren’t, you have my full sympathy; I’m up to my neck
in revision at the moment and I’m less than full of energy, which is why this
post is a little shorter than previous ones.
Anyway this
week I want to share something I learnt, and am still learning, about
happiness. I’ve talked about the importance of a positive attitude before, but
this is something a little broader than that, something that’s a little bit
harder to explain. It has more to do with recognising that happiness cannot be
determined by another person. I think I knew this once, years ago, but I forgot
it for a while, and it’s only fairly recently that I’ve started relearning it.
Not for a
moment am I underestimating the value of our relationships, however they might
be defined. We were not created to be alone; we need people around us in order
to grow, to give and to receive. But over and over again I’ve been disappointed
with the people in my life because my expectations did not align with reality.
And why should they have, when I relied on them to make me happy? We should
enjoy the happiness that comes our way, and happiness is increased by the
people we care about. But it is not someone’s job to give you happiness, and it’s important to remember that
people will let you down.
There’s a
difference between happiness and joy. The first is a temporary feeling that is
affected by our circumstances; the second goes much deeper than that, and I think
until we learn how to be joyful despite hardship, despite disappointment, those
brief happy moments we encounter will seem shallow.
We can also
expect people to support us fully, to agree with everything we say and do, to
understand us completely and share all of our interests. In short, we can
expect the impossible. It can be discouraging when you tell a family member
something important to you and they don’t see the significance, nor share your
enthusiasm, but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong for feeling like that, and it
doesn’t mean they hate you or don’t care about your life. If we spend all of
our lives waiting for approval, we will be paralysed with indecision and
inaction. The only approval I really need is God’s approval, because without
that the rest means absolutely nothing. It’s so easy to be afraid of what
others think of you, and so difficult to cast that fear aside, but it’s so
worth winning that battle.
So don’t let
other people dictate to you how you should be, how you should feel, and what
you should do. Don’t let people crush your dreams, and don’t hold back going
after them because of what they might think. A period of bullying when I
started secondary school made me very self-conscious for a few years, but
eventually I saw how irrelevant their opinion was. The American writer and
cartoonist Dr Seuss famously said this: “Be who you are and say what you feel
because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”
The other
thing is that it can be easy sometimes to be discouraged from doing what’s
right, because it seems like everyone else isn’t doing their bit, or
appreciating your efforts. Sometimes it gets to the point where you ask yourself
why you even bother anymore, as you are clearly wasting your time. The thing
is, if everyone thought that way, the world would be a cold, unfriendly place. It
may seem like you aren’t making the slightest difference, but people do notice.
They might not say it, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t see it. I found this
picture which illustrates what I’m trying to say perfectly, so I’ll leave you
with that.
C.
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