Great post. Too many people look to the outside to make them happy on the inside. Happiness happens the other way around. Find that ray of light, hope, happiness and hold onto it, grow it, nurture it and then share it. You’d be amazed by how many people are happy, in circumstances that others would imagine they wouldn’t be. Again, great post. Thank you.
Great thought provoker, Patricia. I've thought and written about conformity in terms of "comfortable misery" in some of my posts. Conformity starts when we are infants and ends up where you describe people in midlife being unhappy and not understanding why because they "did everything 'they said". I've been reading James Clear's Atomic Habits, in which he talks about the "Herd" mentality that compels us to conform to the standards of the societal and cultural groups we are surrounded by. Thanks for the article.
Thank you for the feedback, Cork. I have heard of Atomic Habits and have not read it to date. There is a strong level of judgement in societal and cultural groups, to be sure with strong opinions on what everyone SHOULD do... I met a man once on vacation who pontificated for about 30 minutes on his career, money, etc. He asked a little about my life, which was nowhere near as glamorous as his. I told him I was divorced, to which he replied that he and his wife had been married for 40 plus years.
I told him that I used to be impressed with the large numbers marked off the calendar but now, I wonder... Are you happily married? Is your wife happy?
It quite threw him for a loop, he stuttered and sputtered giving me all the material reasons why she SHOULD be happy, I mean, he brought her here to Maui every year didn't he? I asked him where she was while he was sitting talking to me... To which he gave their daily routine which included a large number of individual activities. To be fair, I was also alone, but that was because my husband had caught a bug on the plane and was resting in our room.
It is interesting how not only do people go along with the idea of what a good life should entail and some never seem to stop and question if they are actually enjoying the spoils of their hard work.
Great post. Too many people look to the outside to make them happy on the inside. Happiness happens the other way around. Find that ray of light, hope, happiness and hold onto it, grow it, nurture it and then share it. You’d be amazed by how many people are happy, in circumstances that others would imagine they wouldn’t be. Again, great post. Thank you.
Thank you very much Gregg. I agree. There is literally nothing that can MAKE one happy. Contentment, peace, and joy are inside jobs.
Great thought provoker, Patricia. I've thought and written about conformity in terms of "comfortable misery" in some of my posts. Conformity starts when we are infants and ends up where you describe people in midlife being unhappy and not understanding why because they "did everything 'they said". I've been reading James Clear's Atomic Habits, in which he talks about the "Herd" mentality that compels us to conform to the standards of the societal and cultural groups we are surrounded by. Thanks for the article.
Thank you for the feedback, Cork. I have heard of Atomic Habits and have not read it to date. There is a strong level of judgement in societal and cultural groups, to be sure with strong opinions on what everyone SHOULD do... I met a man once on vacation who pontificated for about 30 minutes on his career, money, etc. He asked a little about my life, which was nowhere near as glamorous as his. I told him I was divorced, to which he replied that he and his wife had been married for 40 plus years.
I told him that I used to be impressed with the large numbers marked off the calendar but now, I wonder... Are you happily married? Is your wife happy?
It quite threw him for a loop, he stuttered and sputtered giving me all the material reasons why she SHOULD be happy, I mean, he brought her here to Maui every year didn't he? I asked him where she was while he was sitting talking to me... To which he gave their daily routine which included a large number of individual activities. To be fair, I was also alone, but that was because my husband had caught a bug on the plane and was resting in our room.
It is interesting how not only do people go along with the idea of what a good life should entail and some never seem to stop and question if they are actually enjoying the spoils of their hard work.