constructing a life

I was recently talking to a friend and he said that he didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s happiness. When in a relationship, it is each person’s responsibility to find their own happiness. Each person can enhance the other’s life but it is not the responsibility of one to increase the happiness quotient of the other.

I agree with this.

So often we will hear, “Oh, I would be so happy if only…” The sentence ends with “if he would do this for me” or “if only this would happen for me” or any other multitude of endings.

I think that we create our own happiness. I don’t think that we can put that responsibility on anyone else.

Oh, yeah…life can throw us some crazy curveballs that knock us down for a while. And yeah, it’s easy to get caught up in the negative. But I think that it’s imperative for our overall growth to find the things that make us happy and create a spot for ourselves that is pleasant.

I wouldn’t even say that it’s good to place people at the center of our happiness quotient. They have their own issues and if they are down, will we be down, as well? If we do place other people in that equation, perhaps it should be to recognize the impact they have on our lives and create a positive feeling around that.

I’m a pollyanna. I know this. I do tend to be the eternal optmist. But I do have experience with turning the bad into good.

When my life was at its darkest and I felt like the entire world was caving in on me and I wouldn’t, literally, survive until the next day, I would find things to make me smile.

The birds were singing outside. That’s a good sign.

I like the way the sun is coming through the blinds and making shadows on the walls.

That song really makes me feel like smiling and dancing and laughing.

This book, flower, color, view, whatever makes me happy today and I’m not going to allow anything to change that perspective.

These days I have much to be happy about. But even if all of those elements in my life weren’t there, I would make it a quest to find things that did please me and allowed me to be a happy person. I think it’s the only way to have a good, strong, long life.