The holidays can be difficult for many of us – some, because they find themselves alone on those days once shared with family and friends. Others simply have a severe let-down after that busy period between Thanksgiving and New Year. It may be because we find ourselves with nothing important to do after all the flurry of traditions and sharing. It could be a feeling of disappointment or inadequacy brought on by a vague sense that the recent holidays didn’t quite live up to those of the past, or that we failed to do our part to make the celebrations equal to those fond old memories. Sometimes it’s simply mental and physical exhaustion from going full tilt for over two months and not taking time to get enough sleep, exercise or proper meals.
Whether disappointment, guilt or fatigue, the best way to deal with it is to readjust your attitude and simply decide that it’s over, you did the best you could at the time, and there’s nothing that can change the past. What you need to change is how you let it affect you from now on. I learned long ago that happiness is a conscious decision, it’s all up to you if you are happy or not. No person, no circumstance, no event can bring you happiness – you simply must decide that you will be happy and not let anything ruin it for you.
I more or less stumbled upon this truth by accident many years ago when I saw a little sign posted in the teachers’ lounge at school where I did volunteer work and some substitute teaching. “Happiness is a conscious decision, not simply a reaction to circumstances.” I puzzled over it at first, thinking it simplistic, but after some thought, realized that, deep down, I had always known that. I remembered a friend telling me that she doubted she would ever marry because, so far, she had never met a man who made her happy. My instinctive reply had been, “That’s a big order. Just how does anyone go about making someone else happy?” It seemed that, if you truly care about another person, the last thing you would want to do is to burden them with the responsibility for your own happiness.
We should ask ourselves, first of all, if we think we are happy. If not, what we want or need to be happy. What do we expect and how to achieve it? Do we really believe that another person can magically fill all those expectations? Turn that equation around and consider what would they expect in return? Do you really think you could guarantee someone else’s happiness?
Happiness isn’t just a serendipitous set of circumstances. It isn’t something that somebody else gives to you. It isn’t chance or fate. No other thing, and no other person is responsible for your happiness; you are. You need to figure out what it will take to make you happy. Then, change the things you can change, and accept the ones that you can do nothing about.
It might make more sense to identify the things that don’t matter – those things we mistakenly think are necessary for happiness – and look at the short list of what really matters. Money, for instance. It’s said that it can’t buy happiness. True, but it can help ward off misery. We don’t need millions though. Just enough to stay safe and healthy with the means to pursue interests, support friendships, care for loved ones, enjoy leisure and contribute something worthwhile to the world.
As a child of the Depression, I knew that there were many things that I could not expect to have. Maybe it was easier because not very many other people had them either. In fact, as most people of my generation will tell you now, we’re probably better off. We learned to improvise, to find alternatives, to invent, or to accept what we couldn’t do anything about. We learned that those things didn’t have much to do with whether or not we were happy.
The knight in shining armor, the “ship coming in,” finding Sleeping Beauty, or winning the lottery isn’t what’s going to do it. Happiness is a conscious decision, not simply a reaction to circumstances. You decide.