So we all want to be happy – face it, that’s why we are on the pages of moltohappy, but by aiming to ‘always’ be happy are we setting ourselves irrational unreachable goals that lead to inevitable disappointment and frustration? When we aren’t happy, we assume that we should be, and that it is our right if not our obligation to be so, which breeds those niggling, horrid little questions: ‘Why am I not bursting with joy? What did I do wrong?’. We start to notice that everyone else seems ecstatic and find it disturbing. Life becomes a New Year’s Eve, where you just HAVE TO enjoy yourself.

Are you happy today? How do you know? Is it not thanks to a bad day you had this week that you can compare it with? We need the bad times to recognize the good ones. We need to feel miserable to appreciate the days when we laugh for no reason; We need to feel sleepy, to appreciate feeling awake; Need to feel sick to appreciate feeling great!

Victor Frankl claimed that there were three ways for us to discover meaning in our life; the third being the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering (Frankl, 1946). Of course Frankl’s suffering was extreme and one could never compare the torture of a concentration camp with a bad day in the office, but the concept he offered us is the same. It is our reaction to the bad days that makes everything fall into place. It is accepting that this moment will pass and that whilst changing the situation may beyond our control – controlling our reaction to the situation remains entirely within our power.

Happiness isn’t a black or white, yes or no matter; it’s a scale. There are very, very good days at the top and there are very, very bad days at the bottom but there are millions of average days in between and we can make them decent.

Some suffering is inevitable; bad health, the end of a relationship, a lost loved-one, an unexpected accident, a betrayal, an insult, a blow… sooner or later we may all be hit hard. But it is also necessary and the secret to success is living it with calm serenity, accepting it and using the time to collect your energies, get up and move on.

So next time you are down there at rock bottom with an aching in your heart, stay there for a while and just look up, observe what you see, decide where to go next and how, enjoy the undemanding still, collect your thought and then, when you are ready, stand tall and act.

"Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary." Viktor Frankl.

dw

Sources and further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl
http://www.amazon.com/Will-Meaning-Foundations-Applications-Logotherapy/dp/0452010349