A few days ago a good friend of mine casually said something about me, that left me sort of speechless.
You’re always happy! But who wouldn’t?! Everything is always perfect in your life”.
Her matter-of-fact statement made me feel surprised and misunderstood. Because there was an assumption that I’m happy because “my life is better” compared to other people.
And I simply don’t think this is true. At least not in the way she meant it. And what is a perfect life anyway?!
So what is the truth?
Yes. I consider myself a happy person. And yes, it’s also true that I’m happy most of the time (not all the time), but definitely most of it.
What is not true, is that my life (or anybody’s life for that matter) is immune to so called “bad stuff” (negative things) happening every day. Not. At. All.
I will say that it is true that my happiness is assisted (at the moment) by personal circumstances that feel balanced, healthy and well. I say “at the moment” because I know very well that everything can change any minute. So I don’t take my circumstances for granted, ever. I’ve experienced having my life flipped 180 degrees from one day to the other, more than once.
Which is why my current circumstances do NOT get most of the credit for my joy. Because no matter how “good” something might be in general for a while, life happens to me just like to anybody else. What do I mean?
Despite having some of the “big” things currently in a good place (such as my health, relationships, financials), science has shown that what predominantly affects mostly the emotional state of the average human being is the every-day happenings of life. In my case, there are still days when I loose clients, or I learn that a loved one is going through difficult times. There are days when Donald Drumpf tries to impose horrific immigration policies, there are days when I wake up not feeling well. There are days when I get e-mails confirming that a deal fell through, or days when I feel misunderstood or said something that I regret.
But there have also been days when bigger things happened. Like when I woke up to the news that my brother had a few months to live, or when I got a call early one morning with my sister crying after my mom had a heart attack and was given a few months to live. In other words, there are days. It’s called life.
What I’m trying to say is that I don’t feel that I’m particularly spared in any way from “life being life”.
So, what is the baseline for my happiness? I think it’s two things.
First: I intend to be happy. I do believe that waking up predisposed to feeling happy, or having a joyful stance in general, can become (over time) sort-of an automatic demeanor. It can become a default attitude in life, not because I was born happier than most people, but because we (humans) are creatures of habit. Do something long enough, and yes, it becomes automatic. This is true for any behavior (be it an action or an attitude). In my case, being happy became a conscious intention many years ago. I chose that stance. I practiced it, through appreciation, through presence, through meditation. And yes, I’ve exercised this demeanor long enough, that it’s not difficult for me to feel happy.
Second: I do think that at the core of my easy predisposition towards joy is,
A knowing that, no matter how bad something may seem or feel, it is temporary. Not only temporary, but everything will be just fine and potentially BETTER when this passes”.
This knowing is HUGE.
How so?
There is an enormous difference between:
—> Feeling pain, scared, ashamed, angry but knowing that it will pass,
versus:
—> Feeling the same and wondering if it will get even worse.
Huge difference indeed. Not just during the time that the negative emotions live in our body, but I believe that this knowing accelerates the re-balancing of my emotions. This knowing makes it fairly easy and quick for me to feel well again, even if the circumstances haven’t changed a bit, yet.
- Yes, I get sad, upset, angry, insecure, worried often, like everybody else. It just doesn’t last long.
I wouldn’t say that I’ve had this knowing my whole life. In fact, I credit the most difficult moments of my life as the ones that taught me this, and everything else that has made me more secure in my emotions and state of being. Because when you go through the experience of a terminal illness and death of a loved one, and somehow you come out the other side not just ok, but stronger and better, then you don’t hope…you KNOW that nothing can really brake you unless you choose that fate. Knowing this is life-changing. “Knowing” is the keyword. Knowing is not hoping. It’s more than believing, knowing is BEING it.
So yeah. I think this is what’s at the core of my joy. And if having this knowing is what my friend called “a perfect life”, then yes, my life is perfect. But in that case, anybody can have a perfect life regardless of circumstance. Right?
Yours always,
