Choose Happiness

When talking to a friend one night I said ... " how do you do it? How do you not get upset at so and so .... I never hear you complain about them . "

They answered,  " I just choose not to let her ruin my day". 

As simple as that answer was it was so profound to me.  We choose to let people upset us , we give people the power to hurt us.  We have the choice to let the things people say affect our mood or we can choose to ignore it and overcome it by choosing happiness and inner peace.  

We cannot control what others do .. and it's frustrating to have to deal with the consequences of other people's poor choices , but we can't let THEIR issues and THEIR problems dictate the way we live.

I am the type of person that enjoys making others feel good about themselves  . I enjoy reaching out and telling people that I care. Whether its through a text or a little quote to let them know I'm thinking of them ... I just feel happy by hopefully causing this person to smile and feel better about themselves. BUT sometimes I get sad when no one does that for me .. or they don't respond or acknowledge what I said... I don't know if I was sad that it didn't make them "happy" , or was it deeper than that. 

When reading "The Happiness Project" I realized that we tend to do to others what WE think would make US happy . We use our love language to show how much we care because that's how WE feel loved ... so when that person doesn't respond or react the way we would if we would have received the gesture we get our feelings hurt.  

But in reality. ... it's not that they don't appreciate it , they just feel love and SHOW emotions differently

So a sappy love text isn't always going to equal a sappy love text in return. .. but we cannot assume that they don't care just because we don't get the response we want.

But what I found most interesting is realizing that although our intentions are good in wanting to make someone else happy. ... sometimes we are doing it to actually gain validation and in turn make ourselves happy.  

I know I am guilty of that.  Sometimes I say I miss you because I actually want to know that I'm being missed as well.... and then get my feelings hurt or feel insecure when the response I was "looking for " was not done . 

I realized that situations like that happened quite often and that was a big contributor to my sadness and insecurity which were keeping me from being HAPPY! So I had to change it... 

As part of my happiness project , I am not only working on not allowing other people's bad mood , bad attitude and hurtful words or actions bring me down . I am also going to work on not GIVING with the intention of RECEIVING.  I am not saying I'm always doing nice things to get nice things in return . But I am not going to let the lack of reciprocation cause me to be unhappy . 

 I'm Going to continue to stay true to myself and share my feelings.. but I'm going to do that without expecting or Needing a response to make me happy . 

Happiness comes from within and only I can really make or break my day.  It's much easier said than done. . But it's worth the effort!  

#whitshappinessproject