Make happiness your lifetime habit

By Anne Mukei

It is that week of the year when majority of us expect someone to make us happy. It is when we take that ‘performance appraisal sheet’ to fill in the blanks and determine whether our loved one truly loves us.

There is nothing wrong with this, only that it means we peg our happiness on how others treat us. Interestingly, my human resources director said the same in a staff meeting earlier this week. She stated that true happiness would come when one fulfills their objectives and works towards fulfilling their goals as expected. That being your own person is key since when the appraisal period comes, it is your performance that will matter and not anyone else’s.

Happy cocoon

A colleague tells me that self-love is like having that retainer that writers know too well about. This means that regardless of whether or not you write as much in a particular month, you will still have something little to sustain you.

In matters of love, it means that whether your partner treats you like royalty or not, you will stay happy. It is deciding what is going to make you happy and what will not. It means you are firm and clear with what you want for yourself without comprising your needs and principles.

I know staying happy is a difficult job, but when you make up your mind to do so, you reach that utopia — that imagined space or state in which everything is perfect — only that this time it is not imagined. It is kind of nirvana where outside circumstances do not affect you and you exist in a happy cocoon.

Experts say that it takes more energy to be unhappy than to be happy. Yet the benefits we derive from choosing to be happy and remaining so are enormous. But the irony is that most of us spend our waking moments in the rollercoaster that is life today, and we do not help matters by stating the conditions life must meet before we can be happy. We are quick to enter that familiar unhappy space that paints life gloomier than it really is.

Desiderata

Do you genuinely believe you are fabulous? Why not convince yourself you are that and so much more? You could start by reading the famous Desiderata by American writer Max Ehrmann over again, and “... stop comparing yourself with others, for you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself”.

Love yourself first today; this week; this month and this year. Hopefully, and with practice, it will eventually become a lifetime habit and your happiness will no doubt rub off on others. Happy Valentines Day!