Choosing Happiness Is Noble, Not Weak

I used to think that happiness was a weak thing to be aiming for.

I used to think that suffering and struggle were noble things to be endured. I thought it made me seem more spiritual and worthy if I had some kind of struggle going on all the time.

I could tell stories of how I overcame this and that and I could be buoyed by the pity and sympathy and admiration I saw in the eyes of those who listened to my tales of woe and how I overcame them.

I felt so unloved that I was happy to settle for sympathy, pity and admiration.

This was not conscious, of course. It was just the underlying nonsense that I had bought into.

It took some unravelling for me to realise what I was doing and instead of choosing pain and suffering as a goal so that I could be ‘LOVED’, I chose to be responsible for my own happiness.

I learnt to very simply ask myself if something added to my happiness or not and if it did not, then make plans to remove it from my life.

Of course, there were squeals from the inner victim that felt it would be unloved and alone without the sad stories & the drama and the pain but in the process of doing this inner clear-out, I learnt to love myself, I learnt that I was…