Can I be happy on my own?
Learning how to be happy without the aid of another human being is something very powerful. After all, being in a romantic relationship doesn’t necessarily create everlasting happiness, nor does not being romantically involved with someone is a synonym of unhappiness. Contrary to what Tom Jobim suggested with his popular song Wave, it is far from impossible to be happy, independent of having a partner. It is in fact necessary to be happy without a partner, so we can share our own happiness. Otherwise, we’d be relying on someone else to make us feel a certain way so we can be happy.
As mentioned in my previous post, happiness is a combination of a complex state of physical, psychological and emotional ease and comfort. Thus, unless getting punched in the stomach produces some kind of psychological effect which then translates into emotional comfort, no one else can make us neither happy nor unhappy. The best someone else can do to make us either happy or unhappy is to remind us of something either pleasant or painful we experienced in the past which will trigger a certain physical, psychological and emotional state. Therefore, happiness can’t be pursued as a goal to which we can accomplish.
If we decide only to be happy upon achieving a goal, we’d spend the great majority of our time alive unhappy because we’d be limiting our possibilities to be in fact happy. “I’m gonna be happy when I’m made manager of my firm” means that until then I’m gonna be miserable and being miserable will limit my potential to be made manager. “I’m gonna be happy when my partner tells me (s)he loves me five times a day” means that if my partner’s having a bad day and only tells me (s)he loves me four times, I’m gonna be frustrated. These surreal expectations of being happy literally limit us to one single possibility of being happy. If any of the other infinite possibilities happen, I’d be unhappy. In other words, we build a 6 lane motorway to unhappiness and a dirt bumpy road to happiness. Where I live, this is called insanity.
What if we could become active participants in every opportunity we face in our lives? I mean, if our boss yelled at us in front of the whole crew we could get pissed off or we could be happy to have a job to afford our lifestyle in spite of our boss. If our husband/wife forgets our anniversary, we could get frustrated or decide to make instant pasta, go out to have dinner in the garage and have the weirdest dinner anniversary ever. It is entirely up to us to make the happiness we wish out of whatever situation we’re presented with or fall victim and complain that we deserved better luck.
Moreover, we can only give that which we have. Therefore, if we’re miserably unhappy people who depend on people, places and things to make us happy, we will only be able to attract miserably unhappy people who depend on us to take them somewhere and give them some things to make them happy. On the other hand, if we’re happy within our own skin and are able to have a positive outlook on most situations, we can actually offer happiness, fun and excitement to everyone we come across and therefore we’ll be able to attract people who rely on anything to be made happy, but are looking for someone to share their own happiness with. The former forms a couple that is codependent or incoherent. Whereas the latter, makes a couple that is independent and coherent. Coherence means that a set of ideas or a plan is clear and carefully considered within which each part connects and follows a natural way forward. Incoherence means that the ideas are all over the place, there’s no plan as to where to go and the parts expect each other to give them what they need, despite having nothing to give.
The only way to be happy, in conclusion, is to find out exactly what we need and want, learn how to create it in abundance so there’s not only enough to make ourselves happy, but so we can share those values and intentions with those who cross our paths. In other words, our cup of happiness must be so full of it for us to be able to overflow in to everybody else’s cup.
