Learn to be happy – and to share your happiness! It is OK…

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that since I found “happiness” I don’t write anymore? Or at least I haven’t written in a while. Not for lack of starting blog posts – quite a few actually, over the last 3-4 months – most of them in my head but some of them also on paper. Or on screen to be correct. But I haven’t managed to reach any kind of conclusion, or sort my thoughts out well enough (according to myself that is), for anything to be worth publishing or wasting your time with. And as you all know, I am a very hard judge when it comes to myself.

Initially I felt too happy to write. No, I kid you not – Luther struck again I guess, the little bastard! I felt like me being so “disgustingly positive” and “rubbing my happiness into everyone’s face” was not a good idea. I felt it wasn’t fair to others, who might be struggling or who I knew were struggling at the time. Or perhaps not even struggling, just not in the same happy place as I was. I mean, who wants to know and read about when everything is going well for someone anyway? Who really cares? When I write about my struggles with depression, or more importantly how I have dealt with it, then I can help someone else by providing another perspective. Perhaps inspire or motivate someone to have the courage to face their demons? But just telling everyone how happy I am? Naahhh, that seemed a bit presumptuous and narcissistic to me (there we go, again: Luther keeps pushing us all down!).

I know for a fact that “the old me” used to get super aggravated by people like “the new me”: people who always managed to see something positive in everything, rarely got frustrated or annoyed with others, or seemed incapable of taking anything seriously. My old self couldn’t stand people like the one I am becoming. The human I have evolved into. I would have felt a strong urge to “kick their teeth in” as I used to say quite often, when talking to my friends about other friends who were always “so disgustingly positive and chirpy all the time”.

I had a brief conversation with a fellow blogger on this topic. Francis, whose posts I enjoy tremendously and learn a lot from. And sometimes we exchange brief thoughts and he always offers me a different perspective on things, as did he this time and that’s a big part of why I am finally posting a “happy post”. I shared my “happiness insecurities” with him and he wrote back saying:

…while we write and hope that it will help someone out there, but we write not to please others. It’s just another avenue for us to express our emotions. There will be some who love to share your joy, it doesn’t matter whether there is value to it or not. Those who loves you, they will love to see how you are doing. Don’t they? I couldn’t believe myself coming out with such quotes too, and I’m beginning to believe them. Last but not least, even if there is no other readers reading your blog, there will be me.

I do recommend that you check out his wonderful and very insightful blog by the way. It is a great read: Let the Thoughts Fly.

I realized that he was right: I should continue writing even if I am not miserable anymore. Not because “I owe it to my readers and followers” but because I understood that everyone does not tick like I tick. I probably get (or used to at least – I am not sure because I am still making assumptions based on my old self; still getting to know the new self!) more out of reading a story about how someone went from bad to good but of course there are people out there that do not tick that way – people who get motivated and inspired by reading the positive stories of how someone went from good to great. Because everyone is inspired and motivated by different things, right? So instead of writing for just the people who tick like me, why not at least try to write for the people who tick differently as well? Because if I can only inspire and motivate one more person, to get on the journey that I have been on for close to a year now and help them help themselves to finding this kind of happiness, then it’s surely worth annoying another 9, right? And it is worth my own struggles with writing a purely positive piece, hammering away at the keyboard while trying to swat that damn Luther away, who keeps buzzing in my ear telling me “not to brag”.

Screw you, Luther, I deserve to be happy and to share my happiness – I won’t apologise for that anymore!