Happiness belongs to you. You don’t have to wait around for someone else to gift it to you. Putting your happiness in the hands of others isn’t wise. It’s risky business. What happens if nobody ever gives you that gift? You just live your entire life being unhappy?
When we are unhappy, we tend to blame it on others. Someone didn’t do what they were supposed to do and left us disappointed. Someone didn’t hold up their end of the bargain and left us holding the bag. Someone hurt us and turned our world upside down. All of which may be true but that doesn’t mean they get to take our happiness away.
Happiness isn’t something in a box, all wrapped up in beautiful paper with an ornately tied bow that someone else gives you and then takes away. It is something you create inside yourself.
Others may hurt you but they can’t steal your happiness, unless you let them. I found this analogy in a meditational book I read each morning…
It is true that someone may step on your foot and it hurts. But, the pain is yours not theirs and it is your responsibility to tell them to get off your foot.
This is so simple, yet profound. When someone else hurts us, they don’t feel the pain, we do. They have created it but it’s our responsibility to put a stop to it.
As long as you are seeking happiness from others, it will continue to elude you. You are looking in the wrong place.
This doesn’t mean we don’t have expectations of others. We have the right to ask others to hold up their end of the bargain. But if they don’t, it doesn’t mean we give away our happiness to them.
What can you be doing to create happiness for yourself? It’s your responsibility to create it, nobody else’s. It’s inside you, that’s where you need to look.
And if someone else is making it difficult because they’re causing you pain, tell them to get off your foot.