What Must Change for Me to Be Happy?

Having an Uncommon Home, Education, and Personal Life – Part 5

What Must Change for Me to Be Happy?

How many times have you tried to change a person you’re in a relationship with, be it a parent, friend, other family member or significant other?

“Normal” thinks happiness can be compensated.
Have you ever hated your job, tried to quit and the company counters by offering you more money to stay on board?  I bet you know someone?  How is it that the company tries to offer more money in place of an employee’s happiness?  By the way, this never works.  There is no amount of money that can give you happiness when you’re unhappy.  That boss is still the same boss.  Your responsibility is still your responsibility.

The relationship that gets better when you change the other party.
Throughout ages, normal people in relationships try to change their relationship partners into becoming more like them.  When we try to change someone, what we are saying is that who we are, is better than they are.  Our method is better.  Our way of doing it is more efficient.  We’re not happy until we have our way.  What this also says is that I’m not going to be happy until this individual gives me what I want.  They have now been given the keys to my happiness.  They’re in control of whether or not I’m happy! I love telling you this…that’s so common.  Common is being a slave to another so that you can receive happiness.

What Must Change to Be Happy

The friend you can have when you change.
My wife, Pamela, found herself having a strong dislike for a former coworker.  We would discuss week in and week out, all the challenges this coworker brought to their team.  One day, we were praying about one of the many issues and God answered our prayer in the weirdest, most unexpected way.  He said stop disliking her and find something you can like.  In other words, He made us realize that like and dislike resided inside of us.  It had nothing to do with the person we disliked.  Pamela decided to go with it and give it a try.  Fast forwarding many years, these 2 coworkers are and remain the best of friends. So what was it that Pamela did?  She decided to take an uncommon path.  She decided to like this person and it had nothing to do with the person being likable. It had nothing to do with changing this person.  The only thing, person, that changed was Pamela and me.  We found that our happiness, even friendships, is not set by another, but rather by ourselves.

Happiness can be found anywhere and in anything.
What my wife and I have concluded is that happiness first starts with you deciding you will be happy.  If the person or the situation you rely on to be happy no longer exist, how then would you find happiness?  It must come from within. In fact, if it doesn’t, you become one of the slave masters that’s standing in the way of some common person’s happiness.  Happiness is not an event, it’s an attitude or state of being.  When you decide that you’re going to be happy no matter what’s going on, no one can ever again hold you captive in a prison of unhappiness.  Common people don’t have a choice in the matter, the no-longer-common makes it a choice.

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