Is that so bad?
Yes and no.
It’s good that we don’t want anyone to be hurt. I want to treat everyone with compassion and kindness, with respect and friendliness and not because I worry about what they think about be, but because I worry about how they feel. I want others to be happy because it makes me happy when others are happy.
The problem is that sometimes, my own happiness doesn’t align with what makes others happy and that has been such a struggle for me to understand and cope with. I want everyone to be happy, but that is impossible. Sometimes people will be unhappy, because we are all different. The fact that we are all different is, in my opinion, part of what makes life and the world so beautiful and fascinating – it is part of what makes life worth living for me. It is, however, also what can create quite a lot of the messes we humans get ourselves into.
Most of my life, I valued the happiness of others above my own. I am not saying this to be a martyr or because I am proud of it – in fact, I am more embarrassed than anything else. I do feel I need to be honest about this, because I might not be the only one who feels this way.
You see, when you value the happiness of all others above your own, you very often end up hurting yourself and somehow justify that hurt with their happiness. What happened to me was even worse; I somehow ended up believing I had to be unhappy for others to be happy. I got so used to it, I felt I deserved it, and it ended up shattering my sense of self-worth. The worst part is, I didn’t realise it for years. I just continued happily to be unhappy because I felt I was doing what was right. It wasn’t.
Yes, other the happiness of others is very important, but not at the cost of your own health and happiness. There has to be balance in life. There has to be space for your own happiness too. There has to be YOU. Don’t break yourself to fit into anyone else’s mould.
I always say that I want to do my best to forgive and love everyone, no matter how silly people think it is. It is who I am and more importantly, it is who I want to be. I want to forgive others, not for their sake, but for my own. I want to love others altruistically because I want to believe that we all have good inside us, we can all choose differently and decide to change our lives and become kind and loving people. I want everyone to have the chance to change for the better. I do, in all seriousness, firmly believe that we are all doing our best – it’s just, for some our best isn’t really very good. We all have bad days, some have very bad years. The long and short of it is: I believe in us all.
A friend of mine is far less forgiving than me and often gets angry at people and the world. He once told me he wanted someone to force everyone to be good. I don’t believe in that. I want all of us to choose to be better. I am sure he feels it’s not enough and you know, maybe he’s right. He asked me once what I do when my happiness doesn’t align with the happiness of others and I told him ‘I never know, but I have to believe there is a way for everyone to be happy even if I can’t see it at that moment.’ I have to believe that I will find a way.
Since that cherry pie and coffee talk, which obviously also involved a certain brilliant TV series, I thought a lot about his question. I realised, rather unhappily I might add, that I didn’t search for a way to make myself and the other person happy, I instinctively did whatever I had to make the other person happy and dealt with the suffering of my own heart in as much silence as possible, because – and here’s the real kicker – I can take it.
‘I can take it’ is not a good reason to prioritise someone else’s happiness above your own to the extent that you suffer because of it. You don’t have to take it; you deserve happiness as much as every other person in world.
So, what can we possibly do if we want others to be happy, but also want to be happy ourselves? Is it possible if our happiness is directly opposed to the happiness of another person?
I can’t tell anyone what choices to make in life; life is all about making choices on our own and dealing with the consequences, whether it is simply choosing to eat an extra piece of chocolate or not, or if we take the stair or marry that one person we love more than anything else in the world. Life is choices, big and small.
That being said, I do hope that we all can make choices that prioritise our own health and happiness without intentionally hurting anyone else. It is impossible to go through life and never hurt someone else, because how people react to us is not something we have any control over (or even a right to decide, I might add). It’s their choice.
That is the most important thing. Yes, we should not hurt others on purpose, but neither should we hurt ourselves on purpose. If we do what we believe is right, then it is also the right of other people to choose how they feel about it. It is their right to get angry or hurt if we do something they feel is wrong, just like it is our right to get hurt or angry if someone does something we believe is wrong. That doesn’t mean we should fight or argue or worse – we all make mistakes and when that happens, we should do what we can to apologise and make it up to each other. There needs to be balance, however. I talk a lot about balance, I know, but it is important.
There is no balance if all I do is just submit to other people’s needs and wishes, completely disregarding my own health and happiness, just like there is no balance if I do the opposite. It’s not easy, but I believe that we can be compassionate and kind to each other even when we disagree or argue. It is not dangerous to disagree or argue, if we use it to grow as human beings, it is only harmful if we disagree or argue without respecting the other persons needs, views, or feelings. An argument can help us see the world differently, it can help us learn more about ourselves and the other person if done without forgetting that we care about each other.
Don’t just take it because you can. If you are hurting, it’s okay to say so. If you disagree, it’s okay to say so. Friends, lovers or family – even enemies – we don’t all have to agree on everything, but we need to be able to accept and tolerate each other.
Sometimes, when you prioritise your own happiness, others hurt. I don’t think it means we did something wrong prioritising ourselves – it could be leaving an unhappy relationship. If someone is abusive or mistreats their partner, it is right to leave that relationship even if it hurts the abuser. I have been through something like that myself. It’s not easy to leave, even when you know it’s the right thing for you to do.
Sometimes, it can seem easy, but not always. Even though I want to do what is right, to be good and kind, yet still prioritise my own health and happiness, it is still difficult to do so. Instinctively, I react practically on autopilot, I sometimes do whatever makes other people happy before even considering my own feelings.
I am trying my best to change that. It’s a process and it can be a painful process, but I can feel something is changing. I am thinking more about what makes me happy and what makes me sad, and when something makes feel me sad, then I accept it and make the decision to make a better choice for myself in the future. I feel somewhat hopeful that through this process I will eventually be able to make choices not only for the happiness of others, but also choices that make me happy. The oddest thing I have noticed is that the more I do this, the more it seems my own happiness was not ever really something I had to sacrifice for the happiness of others. Every day it feels like I don’t really need to choose and that feels so good.
We all deserve a bit of happiness.
