You Deserve Happiness, So Stop Settling for Less

A scene in the film Me and You and Everyone We Know -- a quirky love story about a lonely shoe salesman and an equally lonely artist -- shows the artist in the store where the salesman works, waiting while a friend shops.

The shoe salesman glances at the artist's shoes and asks, "Are those comfortable?"
She says, "I guess so. I mean, they kind of rub my ankles, but all shoes do that. I have low ankles."
He looks her in the eye and says, "You think you deserve that pain, but you don't."

You think you deserve that pain, but you don't.

Too many of us go through life quietly enduring things that make us unhappy. We tolerate jobs that cut into our well-being. We stay in roles that rub and chafe and wear away at our happiness. In short, we settle.

A few years ago, while eating lunch with my colleagues in our corporate cafeteria, I looked around the room at everyone and then turned to my coworker. I asked, "Do you think these people are happy?"
He replied, "Right now they are."
"In general, though," I said. "Do you think they're happy?"
He stared at me. "Do you really think anybody is happy with their job?"
And there it was.

We grow up dreaming of being astronauts and princesses. We're told we can achieve anything we want. We're promised the world and permitted to dream beyond its limits. But at some point along the way, we abandon the concept of happiness completely. We build lifestyles of cubicles and commutes. We do what we think we should.

And then we wake up on Monday morning filled with dread and think it would be ludicrous to expect otherwise.

"Nobody likes their job," we justify, "so I shouldn't expect to, either."
The salesman in the film goes on to say, "People think foot pain is a fact of life. Life is actually better than that."
The artist's friend adds, "Your whole life could be better, starting right now."

Your whole life can be better.

You deserve to face Monday with something more than despair. You deserve to feel excited about something more than Friday evening. You deserve to love your job. You deserve to feel that your happiness still counts. Because it does.

Happiness should be a standard that life decisions are measured against, and any decision that undermines your happiness should be regarded as a poor one.

Don't bind yourself up in a mortgage if you're going to use it as an excuse to stay in a job you hate. Don't move to a city you hate for a job you hate just because it pays well. Don't arrange your life so that you work an hour from home if you're going to spend the commute missing your children grow up.
Do not settle for shoes that hurt your feet.
Do not justify a job that pains you in other ways.
Happiness is a basic necessity. Expect happiness -- and then figure out how to get it.

To borrow one last line from the movie, "I am prepared for amazing things to happen."
I deserve it. You do, too.

HAPPINESS

Three weeks after our wedding, we moved to Europe.
We had not completed our college educations,
We didn't speak the language,
We didn't know the customs,
We didn't understand much about life on any continent.

Between us we earned less than $150 a month.
Our rent was $100.
We were a couple of kids
Embarking on a new adventure.
We struggled.
We were happy.

Many years later some things are different.
We completed our college educations,
We learned the foreign language,
We grew up.
We know a bit more about life.
Together we earn more than we need each month.

But some things are the same.
We still struggle.
We are still happy.

It wasn't lack of wealth
That made us happy before.
It isn't possession of material things
That makes us happy now.

It's the intangible part of life
That we embrace:
Best friends
Building a life together,
Fellow strugglers
Supporting one another,
Mutual achievers
Caring what happens to each other,
Pals
Playing together,
Lovers
Being together.

We are different sides
Of the same coin.

That's happiness.

Carole Bos

What is Love?

Poets and authors have tried to define love for centuries, whereas scientists have only recently started. Many of us know intuitively that love is a major purpose for living; that connection is inherent in all that we do, and without love, we cannot survive as a species.
But what is love, and how do we know when we're in it? First, let's start off with what love isn't.
What Is Love?

 It Definitely Isn't...

•Manipulation. "If you loved me, then you would..." isn't love, but rather infatuation.

•Compromising who you are. If someone asks you to do or say something that isn't in your nature, that isn't true love. Although love does involve compromises between partners, someone who is in love with you will never ask you to change who you are in order to be loved.

•Violent. Passions can definitely become inflamed with someone you love, but a relationship with physical or emotional violence isn't true love.

•Just lust. Yes, chemistry and physical attraction are important, but true love also includes commitment, trust and respect.

So then, what exactly is love?

True Love Is...

•True Love is Caring. The ancient Greeks had many different names for different forms of love: passion, virtuous, affection for the family, desire, and general affection. But no matter how love is defined, they all hold a common trait: caring.

•True Love is Attractive. Attraction and chemistry form the bond that allows people to mate. Without this romantic desire for another individual, a relationship is nothing more than lust or infatuation.

•True Love is Attached. Like the mother-child bond, attachment comes after the initial attraction. Attachment is the long term love that appears anywhere from one to three years into a romantic relationship (sometimes sooner and very rarely after), and you'll know you've found it when you can honestly say, "I've seen the worst and the best you have to offer, and I still love you," while your partner feels the same way.

•True Love is Commited. When it comes to true love, commitment is more than just monogamy. Its the knowledge that your partner cares for you and has your back, no matter what the circumstances. People who are strongly commited to one another will, when faced with seemingly negative information about their partner, see only the positive. For example, a friend comments that your partner doesn't say a lot. "Ah yes, he's the strong, silent type," you reply. People with less commitment to their partner would instead say something like, "Yeah, I can never have conversation with him. Its annoying."

•True Love is Intimate. Intimacy is a crucial component of all relationships, regardless of their nature. In order to know another, you need to share parts of yourself. This self-revealing behavior, when reciprocated, forms an emotional bond. Over time this bond strengthens and even evolves, so that two people merge closer and closer together. Intimacy by itself if is a great friendship, but compiled with the other things in this list, it forms an equation for true love.
By Bonny Albo

An Old Blind Man

An old blind man was sitting on a busy street corner in the rush-hour begging for money. On a cardboard sign, next to an empty tin cup, he had written: 'Blind - Please help'.

No-one was giving him any money.

A young advertising writer walked past and saw the blind man with his sign and empty cup, and also saw the many people passing by completely unmoved, let alone stopping to give money.

The advertising writer took a thick marker-pen from her pocket, turned the cardboard sheet back-to-front, and re-wrote the sign, then went on her way.

Immediately, people began putting money into the tin cup.

After a while, when the cup was overflowing, the blind man asked a stranger to tell him what the sign now said.

"It says," said the stranger, " 'It's a beautiful day. You can see it. I cannot.' "

What is 'Happy' ?

The top line: People who have one or more close friendships appear to be happier. It doesn’t seem to matter if we have a large network of close relationships or not. What seems to make a difference is if and how often we cooperate in activities and share our personal feelings with a friend or relative. Simply put, it’s not the quantity of our relationships, but the quality that matters.
In 2002, two pioneers of Positive Psychology, Ed Diener and Martin Seligman, conducted a study at the University of Illinois on the 10% of students with the highest scores recorded on a survey of personal happiness. They found that the most salient characteristics shared by students who were very happy and showed the fewest signs of depression were “their strong ties to friends and family and commitment to spending time with them.” (“The New Science of Happiness,” Time Magazine, Claudia Wallis, Jan. 09, 2005).
In one study people were asked on random occasions about their mood. They were found to be happiest with their friends, followed by family members, and least happy if they were alone (Larson). Another study constructed a scale of cooperativeness, ie how willing people were to constructively engage in activities with others. This study showed that the cooperativeness of an individual was a predictor of their happiness, though it did not conclusively show if their cooperation resulted in happiness or the other way around (Lu). A study on the quality of relationships found that to avoid loneliness people needed only one close relationship coupled with a network of other relationships. To form a close relationship required a growing amount of “self-disclosure,” or a willingness to reveal ones personal issues and feelings, and without it people with friends would still be lonely (Weiss). A similar study found that some students who had many friends with whom they often spent time were still plagued by loneliness, and this seemed to be related to their tendency to talk about impersonal topics such as sports and pop music instead of their personal life