What Do You Need to be Happy?
This is the ecotrain question of the week.
I want to say the answer to this is very simple. The only thing I need to be happy is to decide to be happy. There isn’t a thing or a person or a circumstance. Happiness is a choice. Sometimes I choose it, and sometimes I don’t. It’s really that simple.
Certainly there are situations that make it easier. There are a host of things I enjoy doing, and it’s definitely easier to be happy when I am doing something I enjoy, like playing with my kids, traveling, swimming, walking on the beach, hanging out with friends and family, and drinking beer.
Money definitely makes happy easier, but that’s its own post quite frankly. I have been thinking a lot about this lately, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying and probably doesn’t know what it’s like to be poor. Of course money won’t make you happy, but living without it creates a shitload of struggle, and I am totally certain of this.
Love, of course, makes happy easier. In fact, I think it is impossible to be unhappy in the early stages of love. It’s that blissed out, nothing can shake my joy feeling. That’s perfect deliciousness. In fact new friendships or close community can have a very similar effect. It’s wonderful to feel connected to others as it is a kind of closeness to God.
A few years ago, I lost my job and was living off the sale of my house. I decided to move to Belize. Everything fell through, and I then had no house, no money, and no job. I was living in a trailer with one of my least favorite people on all the earth in the most backwards ass corner of South Carolina in absolute redneck hell. Speaking of hell, that’s about how hot it was. I was absolutely happy as a lark. I was in love, and I was also living with a wonderful friend who has a true gift for staying happy. We journaled and did grids and talked about what made us happy and did things that made us happy. In spite of totally horrific circumstances, it was one of the happiest times of my life. I made a decision to be happy at least partly because succumbing to the darkness in such a place would have ended in me being drowned in depression. Then I did the things that I know help me to stay happy. All that said, it definitely took some effort.
I want to be clear, too, that when depression hits, all the rules are off. Depression can come during really good times when circumstances would seem to make it easy to choose happy. Depression has its own path, and it can ruin the best situations. It’s actually one of the signs of depression that things that normally make you happy no longer do. I mention all this because it is so important to never tell anyone dealing with depression to just get over it or choose to be happy. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that, though all of us who deal with it wish it did.
Outside of depression, though, I believe it is ultimately a choice, so if you are sitting around waiting for some certain set of circumstances to come along to make you happy, you may as well quit waiting. Here, too, I have a really good example. I wanted to move to Belize for about 20 years before I actually did so. When I moved down here, I should have been exceptionally happy, right? I wasn’t. I was often filled with anxiety. Now during some of that time I was dealing with an intense depression, but at other times I was just feeling kinda average. A total dream come true to live in this incredibly beautiful place around so many wonderful people, but it wasn’t enough. As much as I know money will make my life easier and make it easier to choose happy, that will not be the thing either. There is no thing. There is only free will and choosing to take life by the horns. Even out of depression it isn’t always easy. The world is kind of a shit show right now, but I truly believe we are much better able to help ourselves and others when we are coming from joy and peace.
What do you think?
Much love, y’all!
As always, all pics are mine or pixabay unless otherwise noted.
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i THINK so my dear! this is really so simply perfect in a way. I can remember MANY years ago my best friend asking me how can you find happpiness.. and i responded.. just be happy.. it really can be that simples!
I think it really is for the most part. Have you seen Hector and the Pursuit of Happiness? I should have talked about it in my post. There's some rich stuff in that movie. Essentially happiness is allowing yourself to feel all the things.
Yeah love it... when you are depressed 'all the rules are off' .. so true. We can still choose though its kinda harder.
Definitely. Sometimes it's damn near impossible. When I'm deep in depression, even when I'm happy for a moment, there's an underlying darkness.
I wonder then, if we are in depression... is there an underlying LIGHT??
I have to believe there is. Its just so shrouded and hard to find. Its like the sun behind the clouds, but its hard to move the clouds and theres a million layers of them and your movement is like it is in a dream where youre trying to move but cant. I also heard someone describe it as a blizzard. You just get buried, but i can never believe the light is gone. That would mean God was gone, and i dont think thgat happens.
Oh darling. that must be so so so hard. xx The divine is always there, we just can't see because we're so wrapped up in our own heads, chemicals, dramas. It's not our fault, but there's sure a lot of things we can do to address it, and there's a lot of people willing to help if we can just reach out in the darkness. I do hope you don't suffer this again soon. xx
It really is. I learned some good things from it though. I learned a hell of a lot of compassion. I always believe God is there, but finding them is more of a challenge. Definitely reaching out is critical. It's I think the most important bit for me.
You are right with this, depression is not easy to deal with, it requires a lot of patience for the person to slowly leave that dark place behind.
Maybe you idealized the place and when you finally went there it was not as exciting as you thought?
I think what happened is that I believed it was some kind of panacea. Instant happiness! Just add Belize! It doesn't work like that. There are issues and challenges everywhere.
Dear congratulations @solarsupermama! I really liked your post, especially when you say that the money not you haras of all happy, but lack of money you unhappy hara. I feel what you are saying, is what is to be extremely poor! I have lived it, is seen as my neighbors live it and the money is really essential, and if you don't have anything to feed your family. I am pleased that people like you belong to great families @econtrain and @tribesteemup. God bless you all.
Regards...
Thank you for your kind words. It is so terribly stressful to not know how you are going to feed your kids. It's an all consuming stress. Hopefully soon the money will be spread more evenly.
Beautifully written. So true. Money doesn't buy happiness but it makes being happy a whole lot easier! I also found that one of my most simple (poorest) times of life was also my happiest. But there are definitely factors that contribute to not being or being happy. Appreciated your take on a thought provoking question @solarsupermama
I'm so glad you liked it! It really does make life easier. I am just starting to come out of probably the darkest financial nightmare of my life, and I realized recently I'm tired of so many gurus and wanna be gurus talking about how you can't buy happiness or money is the root of all evil or whatever. Um, no! Money sure does buy things my kids need, food, plane tickets, massages, and girls' nights. No evil in that list!
Simple, straight and real. Happiness is a choice and things like money, love and others make happiness happier. It's simple to find happiness
I totally agree!! One day at a time, we just have to decide again and again.