It’s A Choice
“Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” — Aeschylus
I found all sorts of great quotes that were fitting for this topic. One of them is quite long and I’ll share it in just a few minutes (well, depending on how quickly you read). Of all the quotes I found, some eloquent and beautiful, some snarky and some sappy, I chose this one for it’s simplicity. There can be no misinterpretation. Happiness is a choice. Happiness requires effort. That’s it. And it’s true.
Whenever I’m in a funk, and as many of you have read, some of my funks last a while and I can get to a pretty dark place, I wonder why everyone else always seems so freakin’ happy. Don’t they have funks that last for 3 days? Have they never sat sobbing, on the verge of a full-blown panic attack, with huge knots in their stomachs and no idea why any of it was happening? Do they never feel like crawling into a deep, dark cave? Seriously?! I can’t possibly be the only one. I’d have been locked up long ago.
When I’m not in a funk, I’m actually a pretty optimistic and positive person. I wouldn’t go so far as to say perky. Even on my best days I want to smack perky people in the face. That overly cheerful excitement about nothing makes me want to vomit. That probably sounded dark. Let me explain. I don’t dislike genuinely cheerful and excited people. What I can’t stand is when it is constant in one person, or when it is over some extremely minor thing. It feels fake and insincere. I have no tolerance for people whom I KNOW are being fake and can’t stand to waste time on them. On the other hand, I can go years without realizing some folks are fake and tolerate quite a bit of nonsense from them, wasting precious time.
Anyway, back to my original point. Happiness. Unhappiness is caused by one thing and one thing only. Ready? It is caused by the desire to have something that you do not believe you have the power to obtain. Psychologists say it. Buddhists say it. Others probably say it too.
One thing that frequently makes me unhappy is time. Sometimes it’s the time I wish I had and sometimes it’s the time that I wish I could get back. Time to do things I want or need to do but cannot because I have to go to work, pay bills or any other of life’s duties. Time lost, spent doing something I felt obligated to do but that wasn’t actually necessary or time spent doing something I otherwise regret. I frequently fail to realize that I do have some power to obtain time. It seems as if I have no power over time, but in fact, I have a considerable amount of control over how I spend my time.
Here’s the long quote I promised:
“Do not confuse “duty” with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants “just a few minutes of your time, please—this won’t take long.” Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more!
So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don’t do it because it is “expected” of you.”
— Robert A. Heinlein
I’ve never looked at it this way but it’s brilliant. For me, going to work is a duty. I choose to do it to help take care of the family that I chose to have. When I was whining about work a few weeks ago I really didn’t see it as my choice. I was focused on the time I was spending there as opposed to at home. I saw it as a loss. I lost my time at home. I felt I had no power to change that. That isn’t true. I can absolutely change how much time I spend working vs. how much time I spend doing other things. I just can’t change it right now. Change takes time.
I have become much better at this in recent years but I used to confuse duty with others’ expectations almost 100% of the time. Rather than feeling rude or selfish, changing this is actually empowering, liberating and frees up a considerable amount of time. Take a party invitation for example. Let’s say I get invited to a party by a friend (yes, dark side and all, for some reason some people still invite me). In the past I would automatically accept the invitation. I would go even if I had some other obligation going on at the same time. I would go to both. I would go even if I got up that day feeling like I wanted to crawl into a deep, dark cave. I would go. That was it. Now, I actually consider if I want to go or not. Maybe I’d rather do nothing that day. Maybe I’m only leaning towards saying yes because I feel obligated to do so, since it’s a friend and that’s what nice people do. I finally realized you could actually waste your entire life being nice without ever doing anything that you actually want to do. So, I put more thought into these things these days and have gotten more selective and protective of my time.
I tend to catastrophize and worry excessively. I make mountains out of molehills and realize it about 5-7 days later. Now that I realize that I do this, I have been able to pare the time of feeling the “catastrophy” down to less than a day. That saves me a lot of time. When I catch myself worrying I remind myself that worrying is a complete and utter waste of time. Worrying solves nothing. It only makes me unhappy. Letting go of worrying saves me even more time.
It takes a significant amount of effort for me to be assertive, stop catastrophizing and nip worrying in the bud but my time and happiness are worth the effort.
Thanks for stopping by!
I truly, truly needed this post today! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for letting me know. I sometimes get going, completely unedited and once I hit publish think I must be insane.
I am so with you on the worrying thing, I have wasted so much time on worrying. Now my rules are all based on the circles of influence…. and that has helped a lot but every now and again, I get in to my worrying funk.
Love the title of you blog! I’ll check it out later, after work, which I am choosing to go to today.
Circles of influence? That’s good that it’s helped you with the worrying. What the heck is it?
thanks for a great post, cyndi, and a good reminder how cognitive behavorial therapy may work well for some. and sometimes the way we perceive things sends us down one road when a change of perspective could send us the other way. and i love how you used the concrete examples you did.
but sometimes, choosing to put a happy face on it means there is a lot of repressed anger and grief, and we are shutting people out. sometimes, for some of us, unhappiness is biological. sometimes, for others of us, there are no choices.
You are preaching to the choir there sister. Yes, I do love me some CBT but I still have my dark, crawl-into-a-cave moments and even days. I’m trying to eliminate or cut down on them though, because they waste my time.
You could so much be my younger “twin.” From the anxiety to the low tolerance for fake and overly perky people, and a lot of other things you’ve written about. No wonder I love your blog so much! It took me, however, a little longer to find my happy place. And some much needed prescription drugs!!
LOL – I do love how all of us “twins” somehow find each other out here on the internet. Much needed prescription drugs have been my friends too. I very much wanted that to be a temporary solution rather than having to have them forever. I’m so fascinated by psychology that I wanted to it to be a psychological problem and not a chemical one. Lucky for me, it was. At this point I wouldn’t part with my Xanax for all the money in the world but I went off anti-depressants (that’s a story in itself) well over 6 months ago and haven’t required sleeping pills in over a year. I don’t know how I got through life without them but I’m glad they are no longer necessary.
I was wondering if you fell off the face of the earth and just realized – DUH, need to add the new site to my reader. Sheesh I have some catching up to do!
Hilarious! I tried to transfer the feed but couldn’t figure it out. So, yep, you have to add the new site. Sorry about that.
Oh what a nice post and so true! I just stumbled upon your blog through twitter..
In our (south Asian) culture we are raised in a purely different manner where individuality is suppressed and every action is for the family/community. This means education, friends, marriage, career, children, house..you name it and every decision is made keeping the family in mind.
It is not easy at all but interestingly there are happy people in that culture. It is because the way we are raised.
When I moved to US I had trouble adjusting to the fact that I had freedom to make choices, it bewildered me. Because in addition I also realize the responsibility that comes with making choices and also there is no one to blame any more. You have to bear the blame of the consequence.
Sorry for the long comment.. may be I’ll write a post on my blog about it.
No need to apologize for long comments, I love them! You actually bring a unique perspective and an interesting point. I sometimes think we have too many choices, are overstimulated and it gets to be overwhelming, hence all the anxiety and depression.
Sorry, only just saw that you replied to my post. Circles of influence … it means that you kind of look at everything that is worrying/stressing/pissing you off, and decide if there is anything you can actually do about it. If yes, its in your circle of influence and therefore do what needs to be done or if not, and its an external thing getting to you, then note there’s fuck all you can do about it, even if you really want to, and let it go.
Its not a simple as that really, there is another circle which is outside your influence but yiou can have a direct impact on….
I use my own simplified little version and it works for me. I always ask Mr, is this is our circle of influence, he thinks I am a bit of a nutjob, but will answer yay or nay, and it works….
It’s based on a theory in Stephen Coveys book ‘The 7 habits of Highly Effective People’, which is a great book I read as part of my degree and still refer to now.
Google it, there’s loads of stuff on it on the interweb x