I choose happiness

I read the best quote I have ever read the other day, by the Dalai Lama no less, on twitter. The Dalai Lama is on twitter, the social media world is right again.

 "The key to human happiness lies within our own state of mind, and so too do the primary obstacles to that happiness."

So how I read this is, it is up to you whether you want to be happy, and it is also up to you whether you choose to be unhappy. It is as simple and as complex as that. I wholeheartedly agree with this. Without trying to take any credit for the genius of this statement (when I read this I almost jumped with joy, my very thoughts in one simple statement, THANK YOU DALAI!), this is exactly how I live. 

How often do we hear people complain about being unhappy in their job, in their relationship, with a friendship, with their location? A job isn’t capable of making us unhappy, it’s a job, our happiness relies on us. There will always be factors about others that we don't necessarily enjoy or don’t understand, and in the workplace we are not choosing who we work with; it isn’t like how we choose to hang around with our friends. So the way I see it we have a choice to nitpick the bad points in the very people around us and make ourselves miserable at something we cannot change or, we can see their good points. Is there much we can do about the unsavoury sides of people? No there isn’t. Can we increase our own tolerance and accept that not everyone will be our ideal person to be around? Yes, yes we can. And in the workplace this is paramount to remaining focused on what we’re actually there for, to get a job done. If the job itself makes you unhappy, you do have the option to leave. There is always the option to leave. Just know that when you do move workplace there will be, surprise surprise, people you don’t particularly enjoy working with and surprise surprise, aspects of the job you don’t enjoy. Again, a person’s happiness cannot be determined by a job, it is up to the individual to decide whether they will be happy despite the job. The primary obstacles Dalai Lama talks about, as I read it, are in our own mind.

How often do we let relationships determine our happiness? Many factors that we think ‘make’ us unhappy don’t, we allow ourselves to be unhappy. I don’t actually think another person has the power to make me unhappy. If I am unhappy in a relationship I damn well say so. I have the same best friends I have had most of my life, I don’t intend on spending quality time with people I have trouble enjoying being around. If I had a friendship that made me miserable I would quite simply end the friendship. Simple. I choose happiness over drama, I choose happiness over unhappiness. And before you think that makes me fickle, think again. It is my choice to be happy, it is my choice.

After a series of sad events about 8 years ago, I naturally went through a difficult time of grief and loss and learning to deal with those emotions that were new to me. I didn't cope well. But as time went on I realised there wasn't much I could do to change the past. Now it wasn't in any way easy, and I am sure people have been through much, much worse, but I dealt with it the best I could. I had unhappy days, maybe even weeks and months, however eventually I did make a choice to deal with the sad emotions and difficult feelings. I think ultimately we do have that choice. Circumstances or traumatic events that involve sadness aren't easy to just switch off, but I think when dealing with every day, lifelong happiness, it is a choice we all share.

I got this when I was younger, although I handled things very differently to how I do now. In my 20s I took a flight response to anything I didn’t like or that made me unhappy. When I became miserable in my first relationship I bolted. When a job bored me, I moved jobs. When a place bored me, I moved to another. I wasn’t one to hang around and be miserable, however the only fault with that was I didn’t really do much to try and improve the situation first before I bolted, and we all know it is sometimes possible to improve a situation. As I have matured I have acquired patience that allows me to try to resolve issues that bore me or that start to be a cause of unhappiness. I see aspects of my job and other areas of my life that I find challenging as just that, a challenge. But I don't let them determine my happiness. 

This is why I am happy. I choose to be.