I have witnessed numerous people in the past week that actually made the statement, paraphrasing of course, that they like the misery in their lives alluding that to be happy would be boring. And this really has made me evaluate what we value in life has created these paradigms in our brains, souls and very beings that we would ever equate unhappiness with a state of being that would be preferable to happiness.
One area I see this on a regular basis in children and even adults who choose negative attention and feedback rather than positive. But who gets the most attention in a classroom? The best student or the child acting out? What makes the top of the news feed the charitable monk or the rambling idiot on twitter? The adage bad attention or PR is better than no attention never made sense to my brain, who is rather introverted in most ways and that may why I suck at publicising my books. And I only write a blog because I don't believe people read it except my Aunt Gini (still loving the duster!).
I digress...
So do people want to be happy?
I heard a bartender talk about being with someone who clearly made her unhappy in a million ways but the way her eyes lit up when she talked about him. It didn't take a psychologist to tell ya she will be back with that dude at least twice in the biblical sense and once more in the let's try to see if we can really make a go of this. Neither will end smoothly.
So what motivates us if not happiness? I believe that depends on what you value. I value my children's' future happiness (believe me they would agree that I don't care about their current happiness as I give them chores daily) and my own happiness. I cannot help anyone one if I am not first happy.
Happiness comes from self-happiness.
That was the a-ha for so many of us and for others they never understand and can read my words and say that I am just spewing hippie bullshit. Truly happy people are complete all on their own. Then when they meet people, friends, lovers, children, they can be wholly there for. I think where many people fail in any relationships (not just romantic) is without analyzing what it was in past interchanges that I can grow from, change, keep, toss and then glow.
A therapist told a man who had been divorced five times that the common thread in all his divorces was him. Not the women, him. That's hard to hear. We don't ever want to think maybe there is something we need to evaluate about ourselves. But that is where we become free.
We are not to replay the past over and over like its entertainment to be watched. Learn from it and let it go.
I want my happiness to be that glow that others see and feel without me having to say, I AM HAPPY. We all know truly happy people. And as I have said in this blog all along. My goal is hippie happiness. A happiness that radiates my soul without me saying a word.
