Happiness & Regret
I had just gotten a good workout at boot camp! As I was walking home, I ran into one of my girlfriends from the group exercise class. When we were both going to class regularly we definitely shared good vibes despite our age difference (she’s a bit older than I am and she has some kiddos). She’s into natural stuff- organic foods, minimal hair products on her locs and we even talked about veganism a couple times and how she plans to become a vegan one day! When we saw each other tonight we hugged because we hadn’t seen one another in class lately. She let me know that she’s moving back home and was actually gathering the last of her things tonight.
She congratulated me on getting married and asked if I was happy. I genuinely replied, “Yes, I am! Are you doing ok?” Her answer was something like “Yeah, I’m doing ok! I’m glad you’re happy. I hope to find my happiness one day.” I’m embarrassed to say that I gave the most generic and basic response, “It’ll happen one day!”
Instead of saying what first came to my mind, I let it go because it was just one of those fleeting talks. I shouldn’t have let that be an excuse. Our conversation probably only lasted for about 2 or 3 minutes but I’ve been thinking about it for the past 30 minutes. I wanted to tell her that happiness comes from within. It’s not something that you can truly find in a man or woman. I wanted to tell her that basing happiness on any outside influences or circumstances can be detrimental. It really puts too much pressure on everyone. What if that person or that thing that made you happy leaves? What then? Are you no longer happy if that person or that thing disappoints you? Please take it from me, true happiness & joy come from God! True happiness & joy come from the Holy Spirit within you!
Summer 2015 was the worst time of my life. I was so depressed, frustrated, and severely stressed. I was threatened to lose my job. My seemingly never ending battle with acne reached its peak and my self-esteem dropped into the lowest valley. I was broke from spending all my savings on an event that I tried to force to make happen (needless to say, it didn’t happen). I even spent thousands of dollars getting my car “fixed” just for it to break down again. Then, I got into an accident and totaled the super nice car my Grandpa gave me for graduation (the one he’d promised me since 2nd grade so I felt horrible about that). On top of all that, I was suffering from MAJOR plans in my life being changed at the last minute and I don’t naturally cope well with change, unfortunately. Because I didn’t trust God’s divine timing and sought happiness in people and things, all these changes took a much bigger toll on me than they should’ve. No one could understand how I was feeling so eventually I had no choice but to look inward, stop feeling sorry for myself, pray and learn from it all. Only then, was I able to find happiness again. It’s a true happiness that won’t fade. It’s happiness that doesn’t depend on what’s happening. There are only two main things in life that are constant and those are change and God. The second of those two doesn’t change (which I like).
Before I got engaged and married, I envied other women so much. I would pretend to be happy for someone but I was really just jealous. It’s a darn shame, but I did. I thought they were so lucky and I couldn’t wait for that to happen to me! My husband and I were together for 4 years before we finally got married so imagine how (literally) crazy I drove myself comparing and worrying about the future all those years instead of enjoying the present. Now that I made it through all that stuff from last summer and learned from it, I feel free to just be honest with people. Marriage is wonderful, like anything, it has its ups and downs, but overall I love being able to share my life as one with my best friend, but there’s so much more to life than just relationships. I’m working on training myself to be inwardly happy no matter what. If one of the people in a relationship sees the other as a source of happiness, that source will eventually become depleted.
Now, when both people are happy individually and they come together, they can have a super fun and healthy life together! Of course, it’s not always going to be easy, you won’t always get along, and it’ll take a lot of hard work but those elements come with the territory. It took me a while to learn that but shout out to God for giving my SO the gift of patience. Whether you’re single or not, it’s important to just enjoy where you are and work on realizing that no matter what happens, if your source is God, you can have everlasting joy!
This post evolved into something a bit deeper than I was expecting so I’ll just go ahead and wrap things up. When your conscious is urging you to say something that might help someone, say it! Don’t hold back! Sure, I probably wouldn’t have given my girlfriend from boot camp my whole life story like I just gave you. But just letting her know or reaffirming with her that happiness comes from within could’ve shed more light and positivity than “it’ll happen for you one day!” You can have true happiness right NOW! Instead of having regrets/wishing that I would’ve said something and deciding to post about it, my goal from now on is to say what’s on my mind and not regret my missed chance. There’s a possibility that what we say or do can inspire and uplift someone. Even if only one person can be helped by an encouraging word, that possibility is totally worth it!