“Some people want to be successful, famous, rich. I just want to be happy forever”
Or do I?
It’s crazy how popular self-acclaimed ‘How to live your twenties’ is (My Facebook newsfeed is still flooded by thought catalogues and daily elites articles). I’m still bombarded with the constant message to be happy and to put happiness as the main goal in life because everything else eventually disappears or becomes insufficient. It’s not that this is entirely wrong but that the whole premise itself hasn’t enriched my life. Maybe, I’m doing it wrong?
Counting daily blessings made them a little less special to me
I’m not sure if you still remember 100 happy days. Did you do it? How many days did you stick with it? I did something akin to that but didn’t do it on instagram. I wrote down the three things I was grateful for. Every night I have trouble making sure it hits three. I have always been a little harsh on myself so the list on how to improve gets a lot longer than the three things I’m grateful for. I’m also desensitised to the little things that used to make me happy. They also don’t match up to the other #blessed tags.
What I also realised was my timeline is suddenly segmented into series of singular days but sometimes there are things you only grow to appreciate after a series of events. Now I’d admit that this is my own fault and my own doing but I really was paying less attention to those things because I was frustrated with what happens in the bracket of time in which I was awake. These are only instantaneous gratitude and it fades fairly quickly. You see, everything eventually becomes insufficient and happiness, to me at least, even if derived from gratitude isn’t any better at being eternal.
Being happy forever is just not plausible. Not to me at least. Unless you mean being happy on average and not constantly. I am naturally a happy go lucky person on the surface. What that means is that I pretend to be happy on daily basis. I elevate everything to a whole new level of excitement . If you know me in real life, you might think that this means that I’m fake and sometimes I wonder about that too. (The only thing I can assure you is that whatever connection you’ve built with me is genuine even if I fake being ultra happy.) Sure I only have 22 years of life experience but I’m pretty accustomed to being ‘constantly happy’.
There will be days you feel sad. There will be days you would not understand why you feel sad and there’s nothing you can do about it What the whole being happy forever does to that it makes me feel even more incompetent in keeping myself happy. How do I measure my own happiness and tell myself I’m not that far off if it’s intangible? Being incompetent makes me feel even more unhappy and then I spiral down the happiness chart.
It’s okay not to be okay is not just a paradoxical catchphrase. There are ups and downs in life that make happiness worth it. The sadness you deal with is important in making you who you are. How do you otherwise deal with grave loss, you can’t just ignore it and be “well at least I should be grateful I still have (insert something)”. I’m still dealing with shits in life for sure but for what it is, I’m not to cooped up in being happy or miserably trying to avoid misery in any form
Lastly, I think a shootout to all my pessimistic brothers and sisters out there 😌 It’s okay if you aren’t driven by positivity and seeing the good and the fluffy things in everyone. Lemme illustrate it for you. A friend of mine was asking about how to not be nervous when it comes to showcasing choreography or dancing in smaller group. Most of the responses I’ve heard was always “People are not judging you. If you do any less good or if you don’t remember steps would anyone think that you’re any less competent than you are?” This response seems nice and all but it doesn’t sit well with me. One thing is there are other people who’d say otherwise. Those who won’t think less of you are probably your friends but there might be criticism. Sure those who mind dont matter and those who matter dont mind BUT let me offer you another way of putting it. One that drives me to be better. “When you slip up, nobody notices – not because you’re good at covering it but honestly someone else will grab that attention. Someone else thrives in your fall and it’s sad but it also means if people notice, it means they’re watching you!“. See its pretty sad and sounds like a downer but really this has motivated me for quite some time. Sure, one day these sentences and Outlook may wreck me and I may have to be positive. But if positivity is not your thing and this sort of negativity works for you, don’t let people tell you you’re wrong.
With all of these said, I refuse to try to be happy. I’d try to build connection, I’d cherish the moment, I’ll snap chat for a while before I live in the moment itself, I’d disconnect when I need to. But most importantly, I’d be happy in my own way in my attempt to also achieve other things.
fatnovi 