Happiness is a choice. I have a wooden placard on the bottom of my entertainment center with that exact statement engraved on it. Although life can throw situations at us that cause uncontrollable unhappiness, for the most part, I truly do think happiness lies in our own hands.
I’ve mentioned before that I battle with social anxiety disorder. It’s something that has definitely been a root cause of unhappiness for me for many years. (A few blogs down the road, I will go into more details about my social anxiety). I try to be a positive guy, but sometimes it is hard. It’s been a struggle for me to stay positive over the last few years. I’ve dealt with breakups, dead end low-paying jobs, broken music dreams, and a job layoff…all on top of struggling with overall self-confidence. Things could have been worse; I won’t deny that. There are people out there facing hardships that I couldn’t even begin to imagine, but that still doesn’t discredit my own struggles. What’s a minor nuisance to one person, can be a major difficulty to someone else. So, I never judge people in regards to their struggles. You never really know how hard internally it may be for a person to cope with something.
Surprisingly though, despite all the distress I’ve felt over the past few years, I still sincerely believe there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I don’t know where this light is coming from, but I swear I can faintly see it.
I feel lost many times. I’m in school now, and I’m proud to be educating myself and working towards a new career. Still though, sometimes I question my decision to go back to college. I wonder….did I choose the right major? Did I make a mistake taking out student loans? Will I get a good job? Can I really stick with this for four years? Why am I putting so much work into this instead of music? Should I just drop out and go be a truck driver? Will my parents be proud of me? These are questions I sincerely ask myself. I literally have to be my own shrink sometimes, when my mind starts thinking too much.
I have a dream I’m trying to fulfill though, and I’m trying my best not to let myself get off track. I really have a number of dreams. The overall dream though is to build a solid foundation for myself, and I honestly don’t think I can get it without some sort of education. I want to build a life of happiness.
Happiness…that word means different things to different people. Personally, I don’t think there’s one thing that makes a person happy. Happiness comes from a variety of things. To be truly happy, one has to be happy emotionally and financially as well happy in one’s career and relationships including family, friends, your significant other, and most importantly, the relationship with yourself. If you don’t love yourself, you’ll never allow yourself to receive happiness in all the other areas of your life. I know this all too well.
Anyhow, I could write forever on the topic of happiness. In fact, we might have to make this blog into a mini series. This is part 1. I’ll continue with part 2 either next week or in a few blogs from now 😉
Do yall have any thoughts on this thus far? What makes you happy? Do you think happiness is a choice? Toddley wants to know 🙂
Chat and Sip 
Hi. Didn’t realize we deal with some of the same issues, Upbringing perhaps. To be honest I have never felt truly happy. I always joke to myself that if I am given 1 wish it will be ‘to turn back the hands of time and do things differently’. That’s not going to happen so I chug along and make the best of it. But you are correct, happiness lies in ‘your’ hands and it’s up to ‘yourself’ to make happiness exist. I wasn’t sure how to respond to this topic since I am still working on this myself. However, Good luck to you and Ricky on your journeys !!
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Hey A,
Believe you me, I’ve definitely had times where I wish I could go back and start over. Lol. I also do feel that upbringing had a lot to do with my anxiety. As they say, people are a product of their environment. I will touch on that more whenever I decided to write about my anxiety.
Anywho, keep chugging along and try to stay positive. Jane Fonda once said, “It’s never too late – never too late to start over, never too late to be happy.”
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Ahh yes: Happiness! I can’t deny it’s been a tug of war relationship with me and happiness, but I know happiness is something we all want, and something many of us seldom realize that it comes from within. However, so many of life’s challenges can obscure our vision of the truth and path to happiness–like social anxiety, for instance.
Though you didn’t go in-depth on the topic of social anxiety disorder, I can empathize with you in a way; I’ve had my struggles with anxiety for many years of my life. I am, however, just getting to a point where I, as you put it, have become my own “shrink,” but not in any traditional sense. Instead of asking complex questions, I ask one simple question: why? Coupled with the practice of meditation, I am able truly let the answers flow without resistance and judgment, for it’s the self-judgment that fuels social anxiety or any type of anxiety! And anxiety, in my opinion, is nothing more than the manifested bi-product of the fears and limiting belief systems that, if we trace them back to the source, never never belonged to us to begin with.
Anyway, getting back on track, my bottom line is this: if we cease to judge ourselves, we then care less what others think of us, and once we care less what others think, we can focus on loving who we truly are. If we love our truest and highest self, then we begin to see that reflection in others. I dare say love is the answer, and it’s the truest soil for breeding happiness, no?! 🙂 Much love to you, Toddley
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Thank you for your comment, Ricky. I couldn’t agree more with you about self-judgement being the fuel for anxiety.
I actually starting reading a few months back about how helpful meditation is. I have not tried to meditate though. Perhaps I should.
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