Who told you that you had the right to depend on someone else to make you happy? There goes another fallacy!
– S Grant
I know, I know, there is this one person or thing that can make you smile no matter what. Also, being around your friends or family or who ever, makes you happy! But here is the thing, you cannot rely on someone else for your happiness.
First, that is asking way too much. Remember, that person wants to be happy too, and if they are busy trying to make you happy, who will do the same for them? Certainly not you because you depend on them, because you can’t make yourself happy.
Sure, they may love you enough to try for a while but if its a constant game of play and repeat, they are gonna end up resenting you. Behind your back they may start grumbling, then they complain then they really get fed up and start finding little ways and things to say to stick it to you. Then ultimately, no one is happy and things fall a part, spectacularly.
Or think about this. That person who is your all, and who is your source of joy and who gives you contentment, may not see you the same way. There you are on a sad day: you can’t eat, sleep or work; you need that person. And there they are, on the other end of the spectrum , they are having a great day, they are living their best live yet!
For many reasons, sometimes we think we can’t be happy with the things we surround ourselves with: we just can’t live without them. Until they’re not there and we have to live without them. I know I spoke about not being an island, but that doesn’t mean you need to be a vine that sucks the joy from everything and everyone. That does not make anyone happy. So, be happy with what you have and who’s around, but don’t expect your happiness to be based on them.
At the end of the day we have no control over how others behave, but we have control over ourselves: Never search your happiness in others. It will make you feel alone. search it in yourself and you will feel happy even when left alone (e-buddhism.com).
When you focus on what you think you can’t do or be, then you will never be who you could have been. No matter what you do, you will remain poor.
Many of us have an escapist mindset. Every time something looks like it could be kinda hard, we say we can’t, we chip away at enriching our lives; we become poor in spirit and we clip our wings before we learn how to fly. We accept that we can’t and never try. We become the thing we most fear when we are eager to believe that we have limits.
Maybe your frustration and unhappiness has nothing to do with anyone but your mindset about what you can do and where you can go. The limits we place on ourselves are the ones that stick because we are doing a better joy at chaining ourselves to our circumstances, than anyone else could.
It’s easy to tell yourself that there many things you can’t do but remember that when we do this, we become uninspired to dream big and reach for all the possibilities available to us.
I too have to learn this lesson and so it is important to take some time to remind yourself of all the things you have done that say you could, can and will. It may be safer to remain in one place but we make ourselves easy targets for regrets and the very real crime of limiting ourselves. We need to put in the work to be more than a can’t. We need to allow ourselves to be limitless and free ourselves from our self-imposed prison.
No one ever got where they wanted to go by making their home at the bus stop. Maybe we need to get some words out of our vocabulary, and maybe, can’t is one of them. It’s never too late to start!
You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.
― Steve Maraboli
If you’ve recently looked in the mirror after one hard day and wondered when you got so old – but you’re not, you my friend may be stressed.
Today, we use stress as if it is a badge of honor. We talk about being stressed day and night, as if it were a prize that we have to brag about.
This leads to little things happening that add up to becoming BIG problems:
We remember nothing from moment to moment
It feels like your bodies are attacking itself – literally, every patch of skin bones and organs are at war with each other.
you can’t eat or you eat too much.
You can’t sleep or you sleep too much.
You nightly dreams become hellish – a monster you can’t escape.
You can’t decide whether to sit or stand, go or stay. It’s all a mystery!
A small bitter little monster is knocking away all day at your head. Trying to tear it off your shoulders.
You get angry and then don’t know why and frankly you just don’t care at this point.
Absolutely nothing is worth smiling or laughing about!
You have a constant river of sweat pouring down your body. Even when you know the temperature should not allow this!
And nothing you do ever turns out right!
There are so many things that can go wrong because you are stressed. The greatest of them all is that it can kill you.
So what are you going to do about it?
What you are not going to do is continue this way. Because if you do it could be that you really have developed a tolerance for being stressed, which is not good.
The road that seems the easiest is often the most dangerous and the familiar can be so deceptive that your demise creeps up before you can fight it off. To combat stress maybe we need to stop leaning on the wrong people (yes frenemies, they may seems a strange breed but they are a dangerous one!) Also, we need to go to bed and get some sleep (even though I should have been at mine an hour ago, we will get it right). Next, stop overthinking things and just go with the flow. Stop giving people your time, and don’t stretch yourself – who cares what they think. Only you know what you are going through. And finally, stop overlooking great opportunities that may seems difficult but which will bring the desired results. Give back the title and trophy that is stress and live your best life. Shalom!
Do you get really anxious when the subject of the time you have to do all you want to do comes up?
It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it’s been given to us in generous measure for accomplishing the greatest things, if the whole of it is well invested. But when life is squandered through soft and careless living, and when it’s spent on no worthwhile pursuit, death finally presses and we realize that the life which we didn’t notice passing has passed away.
If there was a great deal of truth in the words of Seneca, a Roman Stoic Philosopher, then the last part would be darkly humorous. Imagine complaining about something only to realize when you’re losing it that you had it all along but was too blind to see it for what it was. Oh the irony! And yet many of us are quite easily going down this truly ironic path. Life is too short! This is the cry of most.
Time is too short!
There aren’t enough hours in the day to everything that I want to do and accomplish!
The ironies of ironies is that those who cry, moan and complain about the shortness of time and therefore life, are the biggest procrastinators. Again of this I and many many more are guilty. I think we would be hard pressed to deny this. So we waste time, then complain that we did not have enough of it to do all that we wanted or were meant to do. Sounds about right!
So Seneca encourages us not to waste time complaining about the limited time we have to live our lives but to maximize it so we live purpose driven lives that lead to happiness contentment and NOT regret. In his essay, The Shortness of Life, he gives specific ways in which we waste time. Now do these sound familiar?
We waste time by:
Chasing wealth or what he terms, voracious avarice (sound nice to say too! Say it with me, Voracious Avarice)
Pursuing things that do not benefit us and that lead to very little meaningful returns.
Drinking and getting drunk, smoking, partying. Generally seeing live as a 24 hours happy hour event.
Trying to be at the top of the totem pole. Generally trying to win popularity contests as we seek to ambitiously get ahead.
Either try to conquer others or being anxious about being conquered.
Trying to please those above us in order to be in their good graces. Even though that won’t to where we want to be. But we are too blind to see this, until it is too late. Oops, time’s up!
Not really having a plan or as he puts it: Some have no goal at all toward which to steer their course, but death takes them by surprise as they gape and yawn (YIKES!)
Now honestly which have you been guilty of?
He goes further in his writing to bemoan our shortsightedness in allowing distractions (vices) that take us off track and prevent us from using the time we have in a more responsible way. The good news is that all of us are screwed! The rich, and seemingly most “successful” among us, are also capable of falling into this trap. Clearly he was not partial in his assessment. He further writes of our very human need to attain recognition from others, even while we do not take time to look at ourselves, and recognize our worth, but expect others to do so. Another serious crime committed by us all is the fact that too many people allow others to “trespass on their existence” – attention everyone, do not allow instances where others control your lives while here on this earth! These are things that we need to hear; it’s not that others are wasting your time, but you are allowing them to do so.
Interestingly, he notes the importance of reflecting on the past for self-assessment and for not repeating the errors once made. Sometimes we refuse to look too closely at things we have done because we know that we do not come out looking good! We would rather stay in the present, thank you very much, to worry more about our future. It is handy to remember that our past informs our present condition and plays a role in our future state.
Finally, one of the most dangerous and most destructive crimes we commit , is the fine art of being busy doing absolutely nothing. While he believed in the importance of pursuing philosophical truths, Seneca did not approve of people who really did things that had no true value on the quality of their lives or the lives of others. All those meaningless activities just to kill time (pun intended) really are our Achilles’ heel, in making the most of what we have.
Seneca ends with zero sympathy, and exposes those who waste time preparing for death and their post-life image, instead of enjoying the time they have in the land of the living and makes it clear that such persons are not worth our time:
some people even make arrangements for things beyond life — huge tomb structures, dedications of public buildings, gladiatorial shows for the funeral, and ostentatious funeral processions. Yet in truth, the funerals of such people should be conducted by the light of torches and wax tapers, as if they’d lived for the briefest span.
Seneca obviously did not mince his words!
And so I end with a word to the wise among us, ensure you use the time you have to do the things that matter most to you. Things that enrich your life while you have it. That’s the only way to show that you truly appreciate the life you were given. After all, you only live once!
There are many ways in which we can take the things that happen to us. We can freak out, get mad or stay sad, forever. It’s easier to develop a particular attitude, depending on what we think mostly happens to us. So things are great, life is great! Then disaster strikes and life is so unfair and then it becomes real rough staying above water. When we face difficulties that seem like a great epic – when will it end – we often say we are going through something. When we use that phrase, going through, then what we are really saying is that we are, at that moment, experiencing something unpleasant or difficult. But we never consider how that phrase reveals our inability to see the value of the experience. We only know that things are not going the way we want them to go! We become so consumed by the present situation that we forget that this thing is only for a moment and like everything else, will eventually pass…
our bodies are constantly in the river of change and transformation
Deepak Chopra
If we decide instead to grow through what we experience, then we go through the most difficult times stronger than we were before. We can come out on the other side better than we were.When we grow we magnify the potential locked within us and can not only tell the tale, but become an example to others that anything is possible, if we remain optimistic in the face of great adversities. We have to accept and allow the hard seasons in life to be our teacher; we can learn so much about ourselves, people and the things around us. So the next time you go through something, remember to practice your smile and laughter for the happiness to come.
When people Show you who they are. Why don’t you believe them?
Maya Angelou
Bigger Than You.
Just Listen
Why are you mad?
why are you getting heated?
This was never about you
why are you waiting?
Standing there by yourself
No one told you to
No one expected that of you.
I’m lazy
So what?
This ain’t about you.
you’re scared?
I frighten you?
Miss
Who told you it was your fear to carry?
Why are you still here?
I thought you left
A long time ago.
Okay stay there.
Wait.
Stand there.
Expect more than you were promised.
If you want to wait
for the hundredth time
that’s your problem.
The poem above sums up the idea of how misguided we can be – more often than not. we project our secret hopes, desires and wishes on people and white wash their true character. We blame others for our unhappiness and disappointments. Personally, I believe that this is too much power to give another person over your live. Yet we continuously do so, needing to learn the lesson over and over – but never benefiting from it.
It’s dangerous to depend on others to make you happy and to make life worthwhile. The danger lies in the fact that you can actually create that person from your imagination and place this ideal in front of who they truly are. it is dangerous when you blindly follow that image to the detriment of your own peace of mind and even life! We feel compelled to give others the benefit of the doubt, even if it kills us. Quite literally. It becomes dangerous when we see the person for who they are but still insist on perusing that image. However, at this point it is no longer their problem, but solely ours.
Having faith and trusting in people is good. But this does not mean that we should abandon all common sense. There is something also very narcissistic in expecting others to be a certain way, the way you envision, “just for me“. In thinking that we have that special something that will compel them to believe that what has been working for them, is of no more value to them. The person who proclaims him or herself as being something specific, means that they genuinely believe it. It means that they accept and will always strive to be that way, no matter what others may say or think. It is not just that the person has a warped notion of self, but that they have self-determined who they are.
Believe them, do not make any excuse for them. Accept that not everyone will be the way you want them to be. Their words and actions are powerful because it shapes who they are. Accept that they sincerely know more about who they are, enough to clearly express it. Believe in their words and take comfort in their actions. And if it does not align with your vision, move along and be content in your disappointment.
I was asked that question today and it got me thinking.
Where I come from the unconscious response it, “man is nothing”.
The person who asked this question, was relaying an incident where she was confronted by someone in a higher position. The confrontation made no sense in the first place. It was based on a discussion that two friends were having about something that was no body’s business – at least nobody where they were having the discussion. However, one person who overheard felt slighted because the discussion was about someone who shared a similar title to her – please consider she did not know the person. However, she felt they were out of line and threatened to take her and write a little to the manager.
But why? It made no sense? But what did happen was a clear “drawing of the line” between who was above whom.
What is man that you are mindful of him? (Psalm 8:4a)
Are we titles walking around on legs or are we equal and unique, creatively free and free to be what we are meant to be?
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!
William Shakespeare Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2
Is man more or just an animal, more than flesh and blood more than we can conceive in labs and create for glossy magazine covers? We are more than what others give us permission to be when it fits with their vision of us. We are at the heart of it all imperfect and so we do not have the right to think that a title makes us more.
So as she asked the question I realized that this is not an easy one to answer. For her, was it right that she left the exchange feeling less than, because she spoke about something she wasn’t suppose to?
ramblrWrites.com 