How to be happy

Hard question

What are the reasons why you are not feeling extremely happy right now? Do you ever ask yourself that question? Can you answer this question sincerely to yourself?

What is the difference between a happy and complete person and the opposite of one?

I’ve been thinking about these questions for some time now. 

And I think I am onto something. 

For a quite long time, my life situation wasn’t ideal. Although most of the basic things are good and I am extremely thankful for that, some parts of my life aren’t in the place where I would wish them to be. 

And that made me anxious. Of course, I am trying to change whatever I can, but it’s not always going the way you want. And as Ben Finegold says, trying is the first step to failure. 

But jokes aside. 

I had to figure out what was wrong. Is it me? Is it this world? 

Recently my friend had a bit of a difficult situation in her own life, but in a different field, let’s call it like this. 

So she was telling me about her worries and somehow for me it was crystal clear what she should do and how she should approach the situation. 

And I told her what I was thinking, and gladly it seemed like I could help her. So naturally, I thought why I can’t help myself in the same way? Why is it so much easier to help others?

I kept thinking and eventually I came to a great conclusion. I can apply my advice to her to my own life as well. 

And my advice to her was: give without expectation to get back. 

It’s the laziness of the soul that makes us kind of numb. When we want to receive before giving. But that’s a dead end. If everyone will act like this life itself will probably stop flowing on this planet, cause no one will move their butt before someone else will. And that’s the problem. 

Expecting to get and not being willing to give. 

Funnily enough in some areas of my life, this is working fine, although I will admit I had to learn it the hard way.

Yet in other areas I am still stuck. I am afraid of taking action before getting positive feedback. 

So it’s like first give me money and then I will do the work. Or first, tell me that you like what I do and then I’ll do it.

It’s a bit funny, cause it doesn’t work like this. 

First, you do, you learn, you get better and then you get applause and appreciation. 

And that’s my issue. I am afraid to give. I am afraid to be myself and not care about other people’s opinions. 

However, realizing that made me realize the next thing. It is me. And that means that I can change it. 

The answer is inside of you

That’s a bit of a cliche I guess, but it is still true: if you can’t change the situation, change your perception of it. 

You don’t like today. 

Is there something you can do about it? If yes, do it. If not, do something different inside of you. 

Give an extra smile to whoever there might be around you. Say thank you or say what you really think. Don’t hide and pretend to be someone else. Just be who you are. Give yourself to the world. The world has been waiting for you to wake up and start shining. 

Thus all the inconveniences. 

When you are waiting for approval from the world you are just wasting your time. And sometimes we get gentle or sometimes less gentle kicks on the tushies for not moving forward. For not being who we are. For being afraid. 

I think fear is ultimately lack of love. 

But you have the love you need inside of you. All you need to do is to give it to the outside world. 

That’s at least what I understood for myself. 

And I thought it was worth sharing. 

But there is more 

The next thing that I realized was that there is no good and bad. Although I heard this before I wasn’t sure how exactly it supposes to work. It was quite obvious that something is bad and something is good, that it’s hard to argue about yet deep inside I knew that it’s true. 

There is no good and no bad. 

The good and the bad depend on your perception of the situation again. 

How do you approach it? Do you love it?

In the bottom line, anything you don’t love you shouldn’t do. Cause the “bad” things come from there. And anything you love can be good. 

For me, this issue is best seen in the professional field. I was never really good at anything. I was never trying to get a promotion, cause I never really loved what I was doing. I was doing the wrong thing.

Other people might have enjoyed it much more. But not me.

And I couldn’t get what was going on. Why can’t I be successful in the work that I was doing?

Well, it’s about giving first, as I discussed above post.

Even this website, of course, I wanted to give as well, that was the whole idea, but deep inside I wanted acceptance before the output. First, you will like me and then I will do the job properly. 

And recently it hit me. The world doesn’t work like this. First, you need to give, to love, to be yourself and then you might find your tribe, as it’s popular to say now. 

And you know what, this is what I am doing now. 

I am being at my best just for myself and the world. Cause nobody is really reading this blog at the moment anyway 🙂

But if I have something to say, something to express I will do it the best I can and maybe someday somebody will appreciate it or maybe not, cause that’s not the point. 

The point is to release oneself from the chains of prejudice, fear and ultimately the lack of love. 

And to summarize: 

I stopped doing things for the “output”, I am doing only for the “input”. If I am interested in something if something feels good and I want to share it, that’s it, that’s my goal. I stopped caring about the feedback and trying to “fit” myself, and my work into the possible desires of others. I am here, because I am, not because they are, so I do what I do, not what other people do.

And that’s the most important part of it. Shine your light, not someone else’s.

Cover photo by Birger Strahl, second photo by Daniel Mensah Boafo, third photo by Carli Jeen, fourth photo by James Orr on Unsplash.

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