Happiness, Does It Really Exist?
Being a mother of triplets gives me quite an insight about more than I can handle on some days.
I am lucky enough to experience and learn from them each and every single day. From the moment they were born they have thought me so much about life, how to handle some situations, who am I, who do I want to be, what kind of people would I like them to grow up into and so much more.
So, let me tell you about one of those situations.
My 5-year-old woke up one morning at 3 a.m. telling me he cannot sleep anymore. I’ve managed to get him back to bed. He was fully awake at 6 a.m. and started preparing full of energy and excitement.
What was the excitement about? He was ready to go to kindergarten after a long break. His smile and energy overwhelmed us all and made me think when did my motivation for so ordinary, everyday situations vanish.
Fun fact: his brother and sister went back two days before he did, he was OK with the fact that he cannot go because he wasn’t feeling well. There were no negative emotions shown. Of course, as every 5-year-old, he had a tone of questions starting with why, when, why not… but didn’t show any signs of anger, sadness, disappointment at all. That morning he woke up positive and full of energy for the adventures waiting for him during the day.
This made me wonder: What happens to all of us by the time we grow up? Why do most of us lose the ability of being purely happy?
To put it simply it is because we are conditioning ourselves. Being Happy has become a “must” in today's society and as such has been poisoned with demands. Let me give you couple of examples: In order to be happy, I must win a lottery, he must buy me gifts every day, I must do only tasks that are interesting to me. The list goes on and on.
Do we need external factors to be happy?
Albert Ellis named all the above irrational beliefs and they are the ones that are keeping us from moving forward. The whole RE&CBT theory, its’ practices relies on his ABC model whose main idea is that it is not the external events/adversity- A that cause emotions -C, our beliefs/thoughts -B are the ones who are setting off our reaction and causing emotional response (healthy or unhealthy).
Getting back to being happy: the conditional model saying I will only be happy if… is setting some of us for failure. Unrealistic expectations are keeping us back from reaching our full potential of living a fulfilled life.
Instead of seeing the world as is and accepting differences between our wants and reality we are strongly holding to our irrational beliefs and demands and not reaching our full potential.
My advice for you would be the following: try to catch and write down all those thoughts, beliefs that are making conditions in your head and keeping you stuck. After writing them down, try to change them to rational ones.
It will not be easy but give it a go.
For example: I wish he would buy me gifts every day, but it isn’t written anywhere that he must buy me gifts. Just because he isn’t doing that every day it doesn’t mean he is not in love with me.
Don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t work for the first time or second or third. Don’t go into a new batch of irrational thoughts and start thinking this is not for you if you write down what you consider too many B’s. It’s normal. We’re only humans and we’re perfect because of all our imperfections.
Just by starting to work on yourself is a step forward, a move into right direction.
Let’s not forget one more thing: being happy is not a “must”. It’s OK not to be happy all the time during our lives because life brings us many challenges. In order to be happy it’s on us to embrace both positive and negative moments and consider them as normal part of our lives.
My son did that by accepting the reality he will be stuck at home for two more days and was OK with that. If a 5-year-old can do it, so can we.