Monday, July 8, 2013

Happiness

What does it take for someone to be happy? Someone asked me today if I’m happy. Besides the raging case of poison something I picked up this weekend I really am. I measure happiness by the people who surround me. Some people choose to measure happiness in other ways. They look at what is supposed to make them happy and then set out to duplicate it. For instance, my friend Heather and I went to a paint your own picture place on Friday night. There was a girl there who wasn’t going to be happy until her picture looked JUST LIKE THE ARTIST picture up front. I gave up about ½ way in trying to make mine look like anyone else’s, after all it was MY picture. If I would have spent all my time trying to make my picture perfect I wouldn’t have had any fun and therefore would not have been happy. I hope she got the desired result she was looking for.

I don’t need to get married to be happy. Some people look at their life and feel as if it is going to be incomplete unless they get married. Someone should not complete you (not matter what Jerry McGuire says) they should complement you. My best friend and her husband complement each other and you can see genuine happiness in their wedding pictures. I’ve seen pictures where one half of the couple look as happy as can be and the other half is gritting their teeth just to smile though it. But it’s what they THINK they need to be happy and they have convinced themselves of that. Those are usually the people you see with things that show status. They have a huge house (but not a huge family to fill it), go on expensive vacations and basically do things that are “status” quo”. If you need to convince yourself you are happy (and if you have fooled yourself into thinking you are) maybe it’s time to reevaluate your life priorities.

Sometimes we have to sort people out of our lives. You think you need them to be happy (I’m talking separate from love) and then you have the Ah-ha moment than you shouldn’t need to bend over backwards to make a friendship work. There’s a reason why Heather and I have been best friends for 18 (yikes!) years, our friendship is natural and there isn’t someone who is constantly giving or taking in the relationship. There was an episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted really wanted Robin to come to a party so he threw it on a Friday, well she doesn’t show up and he tells her the party was really on Saturday. He so much wanted to make it work with her, he changed his plans and pretty much threw a 3 day party in the hopes she would come. That’s when you know a relationship isn’t going to work, if you are practically begging someone to hang out maybe you should rethink WHY it is you want to hang out with them.

I had 2 roommates in college. Therefore there were 3 of us in an apartment. I often say 3 is the loneliest number. Someone is going to get left out and it sure sucks to be that one. I hate being lonely so I only hang out in even numbers of friends. I’m kidding but I’ve been on the losing end of that group and I realized that I wasn’t that sad, so were they people that really made me happy? I can’t wait to go see the doctor later, now while that might not make me happy when I get the bill it will make me happy to get some itchy relief! See now that I’m finished with school I can’t help but want to still write during my lunch time. Old habits die hard!