The Pursuit of Happiness

Here's what I've realized lately: Happiness is kind of the opposite of money in the way that it functions in our lives. Money is given, received, exchanged, and stolen between two or more parties. If one person generates money on their own, it's not legitimate; a counterfeit. Happiness, on the other hand, is best cultivated and grown in a personal garden. If the main source of happiness for a person is other people who give or take it from that person, THAT is a counterfeit happiness.

Lately I've been pretty taken aback when I see people who post their status as being "SO incredibly happy!!!!!" in the first stages of a relationship. NOW WAIT! Don't get me wrong! This is not a 'stupid lovebirds gross me out' jealousy post! I love being in a relationship just as much as the next person. I like watching new relationships develop in the people around me. And I understand the giddiness, the excitement, and the funness of a new relationship. But I also have come to understand that as fun and exciting, and great as all that is, neither a relationship, nor another person can "MAKE" me happy! That all depends on how I develop my own relationship with myself, and what I consistently rely on for reassurance when I doubt myself. Happiness is a choice, and if I give the rights of that choice to someone else, I'm betraying my own self. I've learned to appreciate the various things that I can find happiness in, and that I can CHOOSE (and not a gritmyteethimgonnabehappytoday,goshdarnit! kind of choice, either) to find happiness in people and events in my life, regardless of other things going on. I can also CHOOSE to have a grumpy day, regardless of other things and people. It's all about agency and what I want my focus to be.

I think our society has confused the way happiness works with the way the economy works, and has consequently come to believe that in order to really be happy, we have to have to rely on other people to 'stimulate' happiness in our lives!

(btw, I'm so tired of hearing the word "stimulus" in every other commercial, but that's a topic for another day!)


That being said, I'm SO incredibly happy!!!!!


EDIT: I think what takes me aback so much is the responses to such statuses...other people's assumptions that if someone is SO HAPPY! it's because of some outside source. THAT's what bothers me. I do it myself. I try to figure out what/who is going on in someone's life that would make them SO HAPPY!...And so I'm doing my own little social experiment to see if that's just my OWN sick thinking that I'm starting to see from a more objective view point, or if other people around me are also guilty of this mindset! :)