Feelings can be contagious. If I am going to be contagious, if I am going to affect others, how do I want to affect them? What kind of impact do I want to have on them?

I too have found great value in hearing other people's stories of struggle and how they overcame it and how they see the world when they are in a better place. It doesn't always help but it does help and it has played a big role into shaping how I am.

There are people who may see it as bragging because they are in so much pain they cannot possibly see another sharing their joy as anything other than an attack, perhaps because they feel they are under attack often.

People feel the preasure of expectations on them, even the expectation that they should be happy, and fight these expectations knowing that the likelihood is they won't be satisfied pursuing the illusion that is expectation. And they are right, expectations can be rather painful, but hope is life.

Expectations and hope are not the same.