As I observe the phenomena of successful social networking, I believe I see one consistent ingredient – people want to follow people whom they perceive as upbeat, positive, enthusiastic, optimistic – and insightful and informative. Naysayers and bomb throwers have their following, but it’s definitely the minority. Most of us want to be in relationship with people whose energy lifts, inspires and motivates us. And just as important, we want the people following us to be upbeat, as well. Together we lift each other to a higher state of contentment and satisfaction with our lives.
Which leads me to the question, where does happiness come from and how can I embed a high level of it my everyday life?
We all say we want to be happy, yet most of us will admit our happiness fluctuates from day to day. How to achieve and maintain the consistent, high level of happiness we would prefer is elusive. I know this is true for me. Some mornings I wake up happier than others, and initially I’m not sure why the difference. Upon deeper reflection I realize I do have an internal “happiness standard” against which I am constantly measuring my current state of mind, and on any given morning I may judge my life to not be measuring up and therefore cannot allow myself to feel satisfied and happy.
I realize the problem is that my internal happiness standard is based on the wrong standard – external circumstances and conditions, events, peoples’ behavior toward me, and more. In other words, I am basing my happiness and emotional well-being on things over which I have no control and which are constantly changing. No wonder my happiness seems elusive. Compliment me and I’m happy; criticize me and I’m bummed out. That puts you in charge of how I feel about myself. Not a good arrangement! And if I’m honest with myself, at a deep level I know that making my happiness dependent upon your opinion is selling myself way short.
If I can’t look to others to give me happiness, where can I look? Inside, the wise ones tell us. Inside, indeed! What’s inside, I ask. And the answer comes, “Your basic belief system about life. Everything you’ve been taught modeled or coerced to believe about yourself and others”. In computer language, that would be my OS – the operating system onto which all the other software applications (read life experiences) are loaded.
Wow, that seems a little overwhelming. I’m not sure I want to go inside and examine everything that has been loaded onto my hard drive since the day I was born. Then I remind myself that if over time computers get bogged down with useless, memory-sucking garbage, then maybe the same is true of my own mental hard drive. Maybe I’m carrying around a lot of old garage that needs to be removed in order to free up my energy for more positive functions.
For starters that probably includes the belief that my happiness is dependent upon the opinion of others. Which brings me back to, “where does my happiness come from?” ME. I need to give myself the unconditional love and acceptance that I’ve been hoping I could get from you. I’m dumbfounded – all these years I’ve been hoping you loved me more than I loved myself. What craziness is that?!
Here’s a question I think we can all ask ourselves: “Where in my life am I asking others to validate me more than I am willing to validate myself?” Ponder that for awhile, and you will come to same conclusion I did – the only true validation is SELF VALIDATION. And when self validation happens, happiness follows automatically. Think about it: if you are totally satisfied with yourself and your life, what would there be to be unhappy about?
Kent Pelz