There's a lot of stuff out there that says you have to find your own happiness, follow your bliss and choose to be happy, blah, blah, blah...but they leave out an important point, happiness, is often, a two part invention. Unless you are a hermit living alone on a mountain top, your happiness will be linked, in part, to your interpersonal relationships (and I don't just mean romantic relationships, I mean all relationships with other people).
Now don't get me wrong. I do think you are ultimately responsible for your own happiness and if you are searching for happiness in others, it's time to stop and figure out what you want to be happy and satisfied with your life...but this is not what I set out to write about.
To get to know someone, whether it's a romantic relationship, a deep friendship or a family member, you have to put some of your happiness into their hands...to fall into happiness with someone. To be able to have this kind of deep resonant happiness you have to trust and be vulnerable. This is your gift to them and their gift to you. This doesn't mean that you're not responsible for your own happiness. What it means is, initially (and continually) in any relationship you have to let go a little and put some of your happiness in someone else's hands to see if it is valued, cherished.
If you take that risk and fall into happiness with someone and they do not value your happiness, you'll keep falling and hit the ground with a thud. It is ok to thud, maybe even a couple times, (the person you are falling with is human after all, and we all make mistakes, we all drop someone's heart at some point). But, if every time you leap you hit the ground (thud), then it is time to stop falling. They are not falling with you into happiness and they are not going to catch you. It is time to step back from the edge and take back the responsibility for your happiness again.
I think one of the most tricky things is to be able to hurtle yourself off that cliff into happiness again after you've had a few thuds (though it can also be equally as hard to stop jumping with the same person if you are hopeful they will change).
So here's my point, I guess... Don't be afraid to let go and leap off the edge into happiness with someone, but stop falling if you keep on hitting the ground.
When did we become obsessed with being happy?
It seems so often these days I encounter an instance of what I call false positivism. People or ideologies that preach the gospel of always looking on the bright side of life. Don't get me wrong, I think a healthy positive outlook can do a lot towards making your life a happy one, it's just that I want genuine happiness... a happiness that is grounded in (my own and subjective) reality rather than this false positive veneer that has no basis in who I am and how I respond to things as an emotive human being.
I would probably call myself a positive realist. Now, I know that many pessimistic people have hidden behind the motto "I'm a realist" giving it a negative slant, but for me, true, deep and genuine happiness has its foundation in reality. Our subjective realities are unique and complicated and as such, our own particular brand of happiness is often colored by this. It is this coloring that makes us multi-dimensional individuals rather than cardboard cut-out paper dolls with smiles plastered to our faces.
Since when did we have to feel one emotion for a single given situation? I am, as are you, a complex human being. I can be both happy and frustrated in the same moment about a single thing. That's what makes us so interesting...our complexity and multifaceted emotional nature.
I'll use myself as an example. The other day I got a teaching gig. One private student, for art lessons. I was extremely happy about this for many reasons... I enjoy teaching, I need more work, additional income, something to add to my resume and so many other things made my emotional response to this a happy one. However, my student is a 2 hour (each way, 4hrs total!) commute away and this aspect tempered my happiness with a twinge of frustration. My happiness was grounded in the reality of the situation. It didn't make me any less happy, I was simply able to hold both happiness and frustration in response to this single situation. As I said before, our primary emotions are often tempered by a myriad of things. When I shared this news on Facebook (as you do!) I was honest about how I felt. For the most part all I received were heartfelt congratulations....but I did have a friend who has fallen victim to the need for false positivity. They felt the need to chastised me for adding a grey lining to a silver cloud. For a moment I was angry, and then I was just a bit sad that my friend couldn't realize what a healthy choice my realistic happiness was. By my choosing to embrace the complexity of this joy, I was able to understand it (and myself more fully) and have a lasting happiness about it.
Unexamined or blind happiness in my opinion is not actually happiness at all. I choose examined, complicated happiness for my life and (for me, at least) that comes from looking at myself (yes, a little bit of navel gazing isn't the worst thing ever) and understanding how to embrace a joy that is grounded in my own subjective reality.
I am not much of a writer (paint is my medium of choice) so instead of waffling on any longer this (click "this") lovely combination of words and art, probably does a better job at getting what I'm trying (so un-eloquently) to say! Also this (click "this") is an interesting read for how to deal with negative emotions...rather than slapping the happy wallpaper over it!
...that said, (the season of outdoor dancing is upon us and...) I am :-)
ps - I hope you enjoyed all of my links!!
So I started writing this blog about the death of dating, or rather the death of having fun while dating...and I had this whole circus, merry-go-round metaphor/analogy going, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah...and I just couldn't post it... Don't get me wrong, I am tired of modern dating and (as I said to my friend) it would be nice to just fall asleep and wake up to find my partner sleeping next to me, but that's not how life happens... and I WANT to have fun, damn it (while dating and after)! I want adventure and compatible wildness and life trajectories that aren't going in completely opposite directions.
I have all these "things" vying for my attention, telling me to go out there and find someone, through social media, totally rubbish blogs, online dating, Hollywood and their damn romantic comedies... etc. But* in reality, a spark of interest often comes when I least expect it and in a flash I remember what it was like to like someone when I didn't have bills to pay, when reality didn't get in the way of magic...
I was at a festival (definitely a place where reality doesn't get in the way of magic) earlier this summer and as I hopped around in a field to some lovely beats, I noticed a sign bopping up and down in the crowd. It said, "You're doing it right!"
The optimist in me wants to think I am...am I???
*yes, yes! I know I shouldn't start a sentence with but, sue me!
ps - Since I wrote this, I've had the pleasure of reading a good blog...as apposed to the rubbish one I linked above. Here it is!
Achhh! I have been so slack about blogging as of late, but life is busy, ya know?! It's not like I have a job, or a career, or a family to take care of...but somehow I manage to be busy...who knows what will happen when I start living like an "adult"...I'll probably spontaneously combust!
I digress...
So what's with the odd blog title? Well, recently I have been doing a lot of dogsitting. It's not some spectacular career move, but it does put a few bucks in my back pocket, let me stay in different neighborhoods around LA, make art and play with doggies...
It also means that unless I'm conversing with the dogs (which I do, sometimes) it still leaves me with quite a lot of time to ruminate about things...
The most recent little thought that floated through my head was this~
We put too much emphasis on how life or a certain situation feels (and by this I mean our emotional response to any given situation)rather than focusing on what is (or the reality of said situation...reality being subjective, of course!)
I'll use myself as an example.
Right now I don't have a job, no career, no boyfriend, no fiancee, no apartment, no house, no car..."no SIM card, no disco, no photo...we want your soul!" Oops, I digress again, but you get the picture. This situation feels uncertain, my emotion response is one of concern about all of the afore mentioned. That is how the situation feels.
However, the is...
In reality (or my version of reality) things are no more uncertain than if I had a house, a job, "Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electric tin can openers..."
Wait... I digress yet again! What I mean to say is that in reality my life is no more uncertain without all these trappings than it is with them, it just feels that way.
And you know what I decided, I choose not to.
I choose not to feel that way. I choose to embrace the fact that life is just going to happen and if I keep putting one foot in front of the other in the direction that I choose, I will get somewhere...and then somewhere else and elsewhere after that.
I think it is in our human nature to focus too much on the fear our feelings can engender rather than looking at why we are having those feelings in the first place and why our natural response to them is actually a conditioned response that grows out of our experiences.
Choose to change your responses.
Choose forward motion.
"Choose life" :-)
