I used to be obsessed with being happy all the time.
I thought happiness was a state of emotion that I would somehow reach and then that’s it, there I am. Being sad or going through hard times or emotions was always a bad thing in my head and if I ever felt sad or disappointed I tried to push away those thoughts. Now I think that’s ridiculous, no one can be in Cloud 9 all the time.
Accepting your emotions and realising that life needs all its colours and actually being able to go through all those emotions will make your life better. I think this kind of happiness overload that we are being fed from everywhere in social media is making us miserable in the end. There’s always those times when you suddenly throw up because of a stomach bug, or maybe you feel your head is terribly itchy because of lice, or it turns out that you unfortunately found inchworms in your ass. I would consider all of these situations to be the definition of a very bad time, but then there’s always someone who comes and tells you that you shouldn’t complain about these issues and be thankful because you don’t have cancer. I’m sorry but that won’t help me now, can’t you see I’m in the middle of going through something?
We all need someone to tell us sometimes that it’s OK to feel bad sometimes. It’s really healthy to just say it out loud and accept failure or illness and just try to be as positive about the future as we can. I think the best thing about being a human is that we can change and other people can change. I sometimes feel that I’m the only one growing up and that I’m the only person going through whichever problem or feeling, but the older you get you realise that all the problems and emotions are universal. Someone probably has gone through all these feelings already. And this is the moment when art comes in.
I truly believe that art keeps us going and gives us emotions that we need to develop. We all have an urge to be heard and we are desperately trying to find our ways to express ourselves. The feeling of inspiration or lack of it can damage us deeply. I’ll give you an example: you feel really inspired and really want to do something, but you don’t have the tools or circumstances to do it. The other example is when you have everything you need to do whatever you want and you just don’t feel like doing it, you start thinking how is this possible and why am I like this? You are already focusing on emotions that will be on your way if you want to create. Negative thoughts take a lot of your energy. Which are the reasons that are holding you back? Instead of focusing on the reasons, I think you just have to find a solution.
I told my friend the other day that I don’t want to write because everything is already written. Then he answered that it’s the same if someone says that I won’t make music because there’s so much music in the world. Many times we won’t even try because we compare ourselves to other people instead of seeing other people as inspiration. Like one of my friends told me: we are each others mirrors. So the kind of world you want to see depends a lot on the way you act.
I think it’s very important to understand that happiness is only one emotion between other emotions and if you give too much importance to one feeling, you are missing out on the other ones that are also part of the whole “I’m so happy!” – experience. Humans are not just representative of one feeling or state, robots probably can do that. I think we are all somehow broken and that makes us humans. And who wants to be a robot? If you try to chase something that can never be a constant state, you are being delusional. So when you feel bad, just let yourself feel bad and then deal with it, it’s part of the process.
So when you finally have reached the point when you realise that it makes no sense to try to be happy all the time, you suddenly start to feel better. And truly better, in a deeper way. Finally you start seeing yourself as a human that isn’t trying to act in a nonhuman way.
Something we can try to do first is to deal with all those feelings by ourselves as much as we can so that we don’t have to pour it all over other people in full volume. If you can’t deal with your emotions by yourself that’s fine as well and you should definitely reach for help. It’s OK to not be OK.
So whenever you feel something different than happy or sad, be grateful. You can actually see the world from different point of views and realise that there are many colours to be discovered. The happiest are the ones who have discovered that happiness is not the only thing they want in their lives.
– Eeva –
