HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE
- Written by Eric North aka “The Happiness Warrior”
All happiness depends on courage and work.” – Honoré de Balzac
When I was young, I remember being naturally happy, trusting, and curious about life. I also remember my life growing darker and unhappier as my parents struggled with their marriage. They were often angry with each other and would often have ugly fights in front of us children without any regard to what it was doing to us. It was all we knew growing up and it never made sense to me that adults could be so angry with each other and never resolve their differences. Sometimes they would attempt to work on their marriage and bring our hopes up, but all too soon, they would revert to their normal state of hostility. When I look back on it now, I think about how selfish and harmful their behavior was, but I also understand that at 18 and 21 they were married too young and were ill-prepared for marriage with three young children at that point in their lives.
I learned to cope as best as I could and was mostly able to create a happy inner life throughout my school-age years. I would spend hours exploring the woods behind my house, had many adventures on my bike, and read every book I could get my hands on. I remember finding happiness in my solitude by consciously shutting out the external world. I knew that I wanted a happier life when I grew up, but the damage had been done and I had a hard time understanding how much it impacted me. I realize now that my self-esteem issues from those years made it hard for me to be happy, and gave me difficulty in developing lasting friendships or healthy relationships.
As a young man, I entered almost ten-year relationship with a verbally and physically abusive alcoholic. Any happiness that I might have felt during the period was fleeting or non-existent and based on material things. I felt trapped in a more-terrifying version of my parent’s marriage, felt very alone in the world, and often felt that I didn’t want to live. I was at rock-bottom emotionally and turned to alcohol and drugs. After one particularly violent episode from my partner, I feared for my life, and finally found the courage to leave, although I had nowhere to go. I had no clear plan other than the need to rebuild my life and replace my self-destructive behaviors by taking care of my body and quitting alcohol and drugs.
As it turns out, I found out that I was naturally much happier I realized, and in time, life began to feel good. After my breakup, I spent almost two years learning how to create new habits and dropped most of my old friends and bad influences. I realized that although external events were a cause of much of my unhappiness that it could be combatted by changing my internal environment and find inner peace just like I did when I was young. Gradually, I began to heal and feel alive again, started taking good care of my physical self, and was able to feel moments of great happiness. I began seeking out new friends who looked happy and made others feel good. I became disciplined with the goal of making myself better in every way and became a personal trainer so that I could help others live better. For the first time in my life, I was on my own and found the confidence in myself to become a successful entrepreneur. Shortly after I met the man who would become my Husband. He made me laugh, feel joy, was kind and patient in helping me deal with my past. My defenses were strong, but I was lucky, and he persisted and for the first time in my life, I began to feel safe and loved. At the age of 43, I was finally learning to be happy and more optimistic about life than I had ever been!
Many of us are not even aware that we’ve been conditioned to think that we don’t deserve to be happy. We’re taught to believe that external events are beyond our control and that happiness comes from success, achievement, and the external things we acquire. This leads to always looking for something else outside of ourselves to make us happy. When we learn that happiness comes from within, we can take control of our happiness no matter what else is going on outside of ourselves. This allows us to stay in control and helps us to create a life with happiness, fulfillment, and gratitude!
When we’re unhappy, we tend to avoid taking actions that will improve our lives and make us happier. This cycle prevents us from seeing beyond our situation and makes us enact change that we need to move forward without being affected by external events. We have a hard time seeing how things might get better (If we could see how things might get better, we wouldn’t be so unhappy). Unhappy people tend to dwell in the past and:
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Have feelings of dread and avoidance.
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Have a lot of conflict in their relationships.
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Often feel ill-at-ease in their surroundings.
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Share their unhappiness and try to bring others down with them.
One thing I realized that how important it is to understand what it feels like or means to be happy: I although I was feeling happy again, I wasn’t always able to read the signs of happiness until I began to understand that life will always have pressures, crisis, and conflicts, but that my emotional well-being was more important and joyful than I realized. There was a point when I told myself that I deserved to be happy and actually “gave myself permission” to be happy. It was a powerful step and an important affirmation that I remind myself of every day.
People who are happy:
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Want others to share in their happiness.
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Never make a big deal about small things.
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Appreciate the little things in life.
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Are happy for others’ success.
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Live in the present!
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Have healthy and emotionally connected relationships.
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Understand how to handle stress.
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Value relationships over material things.
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Are able to make new friends.
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Have goals and dreams.
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Can easily smile and laugh.
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Fall asleep easily and untroubled.
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Live by intention and understand the value of affirmations.
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Don’t have “enemies” or use immature expressions like “haters”.
Often unhappiness is a result of a reaction that is on some level irrational. By focusing on keeping things in perspective you can fight these self-destructive thoughts and realize that unhappiness is usually self-created. We can remind ourselves that some things don’t matter as much we worry that they do. Changing mindset is the key to preventing unnecessary unhappiness in general.
As the Happiness Warrior I believe that happiness is our natural state. We all want to be happy and by learning how to be happy and how to recognize when we are happy can be the change we need to go forward. Increased happiness gives us more confidence, creates happiness around us, provides better relationships, success, gratitude, and fulfillment in our lives.
Life is not always easy but with a change in outlook physical and mental disease can manifest. As we enter a post-pandemic world, it’s up to all of us to help and make a difference for ourselves and others, happiness is the change that we need to move forward and thrive in times of change.
