Happiness. What is that? Is it something you’re born with? Is it something you work for? It seems to come easier for some and be a constant struggle for others. Just this week five young people committed suicide from the taunting they faced for being gay. One of my comedy heroes, Greg Giraldo, accidentally overdosed on prescription medicine and died. Happiness. It was not there when they needed it most.
If you are not born with it, you can find it later on. It’s not always constant. Sometimes it slips through your fingers, sometimes you find a way to destroy it, and sometimes it’s pried away by someone else who is desperate to find it themselves. Your natural reaction is to hold tight to it, to never give it away again, but you do, and you should. It’s then that you find a happiness much greater than you could have ever imagined. Does it last? Not always. That’s when you’re introduced to pain. It’s the opposite of happiness, and the thing most feared by human beings. It can be crippling. It then becomes the biggest obstacle between you and finding that happiness once again.
I consider myself to be a happy person. Maybe I have a predisposition to it, I don’t know. There was no one in my youth who robbed me of it, making the path to happiness that much harder. I certainly didn’t have it easy. There were times when happiness seemed so unreachable that I was certain I’d never see it again. Divorce, death, heartbreak, depression, loss, pain – they were no strangers. Some days it seemed easier to sit in that pain – it required no work, and it was more than happy to sit with me.
How you get back to that happiness is different for everyone. Sometimes you look to others to fill the void, but that can be fleeting. If it is a choice between your happiness and theirs, you don’t always win. In fact, you often lose. It is cliché, yes, but the only person who can bring you happiness is yourself. The people who find it are the people who can equally share it and get it back in return. Otherwise, you’re just gripping on to something or someone in hopes that you’ll have happiness too, but in reality you’re just dangling until you fall or are cut loose.
As I’ve gotten older, happiness has been with me more often than not. I’ve experienced pain, yes. And heartbreak has reared its ugly head, but I decided a long time ago to be happy. Everyday that I wake up, I make a conscious effort to see and truly believe that the best has yet to come. If there is pain, it is allowed to visit temporarily only so I can learn, but it is then promptly shown the door where it is hit in the ass on the way out. In the end, I am stronger for it and that much happier as a result.
I know there will be people who come into my life who try to take some of that happiness away and I may let them, but it will not be for long. My wagon is hitched to the stars. (I realize that’s not the actual context of that expression, but it works). If other people want to get on that wagon with me, I will gladly make room and we will fly high together! But those who weigh it down will be left behind. It is the only way I can truly be happy. Yes, happiness. True happiness. It is a choice and it is for me.
