One of my really good friends suggested a blog about teasing versus insults. I thought about it most of yesterday. My boyfriend and I since we got back together have been pretty mushy. We'll post little Facebook eCards with mushy messages on each other's timelines or "brag" how lucky or happy we are. Every so often, someone posts a comment like "get a room", "enough already", or something similar. It's funny. Sometimes we post back to the commenter. In one case, I replied that "Happiness is infectious just like misery loves company. I think I'd rather spread happiness than misery. LOL." I suspect the person who read that and then posted to my Timeline about me not being able to take a teasing took it personally. Can't really see any other reason to post that I can't take a teasing unless this person thought I was insinuating that they spread misery. Perhaps, based on this person's response, they view themselves as spreading misery. I don't really know the person that well, so I can't comment on whether that would be the thought process behind the post. What I know is that my baby sis, my sisters and my good friends thought it was insulting. Frankly, so did I. If it had been posted to the comments of the original post, I don't know if it would've been as insulting, but it probably wouldn't have been on every one of my friends' Newsfeeds. I know out of context, just up on my Timeline, it was inappropriate. I had thought after the first couple responses, the post-er would delete it. No. So, I finally deleted it for the person. I know a couple more of my friends saw it and were planning on commenting when they got home from work (one asked what happened to it this morning because she wanted to comment). I'd prefer that misery ends after a couple of my friends vented and showed me a lot of love. So teasing versus insults. It's not like anyone doesn't know the difference. I could blog about it, but truth is in retrospect if the person who posted it doesn't realize it was insulting, no amount of words would ever change that. People that insult others either are completely clueless or are going to act completely clueless. A blog on it would be wasted.
On the other hand, "happiness is infectious just like misery loves company." It's the truth. Smiling is infectious. Being around happy people tends to make you happier. Being happy tends to breed more happiness. Even a bad day can turn around with just the right person smiling at you and telling you a stupid joke. Women tend to vent more than men do, but we vent we move on. That doesn't have anything to do with happiness. Women will "vent" that they got the best deal on a pair of shoes. We tend to be very verbal creatures. Men don't usually vent. But whether a man talks or not, again, has little to do with happiness. Happiness is a state of being that you choose. It's easy to be unhappy. It really is just as easy to be happy. Unhappiness is created when you don't know what you want, or you're focused on something you can't have, you're always wanting more, you perceive that you don't have enough of something--attention, money, friends, love, prestige, power, whatever, you're jealous of someone else or something else. Then unhappy, you complain about what you don't have, what others do have, eventually even what you perceive or guess is something that you don't have or that others do have. The complaining draws everyone into your unhappiness. Think about it? How many times have you listened to someone complain, and next thing you know a complaint, even perhaps months old, comes flying out of your mouth? So the people who listened to you are unhappy, and out comes their unhappy. There's always something unhappy in everyone's life. Always. It's a choice to focus on the good or the bad. Eventually if you're always focusing on the bad, that's all that comes out of your thoughts, mind and mouth. Unfortunately, the saying "misery loves company" is more about warning us to not get sucked into it. Don't get me wrong. We all should have good friends to lean on and be unhappy when we need to. It's human nature. But lerking there and letting it consume you will only make you alone and miserable in the end.
Happiness is just as easy. Yes, really. Chris and I were broke up for a couple of months. I still had fun and made the most of it with the people around me. I confided in a couple of friends, but overall, I tried to stay happy and focused on the good things. That's not always easy. Some people relish in other people's misery. It's hard staying positive and upbeat in a fish bowl. Surrounding yourself with miserable people or putting yourself in a position to be around people that relish in others' misery, all of that can just add to your misery. Even the happiest person on earth can't pull it off under those circumstances. Sometimes, happiness is just telling yourself that you're going to survive. I told myself I would survive and it would all work itself out. It did. No matter what, everything always works itself out if you have no expectation of how it's going to work itself out. I never thought that Chris and I were getting back together the weekend we did. Chris calls it his "brain dead" moment. I don't call it anything. Shit happens and I had no expectation of it working itself out the way it did. I had hoped that at bare minimum we could be friends, but at first events made it so I wasn't even open to that idea. By the time the weekend was over, I figured that no matter what it would work out for the best--no friendship, just friends or even if we ended up back together. Happy people tell themselves everything happens for a reason. You move on and keep your chin up. Miserable people think that this is what I want and how can I get it. You can't get it. Simple. Misery is caused by wanting something or someone you can't have for whatever reason. That's not that you can't have goals and expectations of achieving those goals. I've always set goals for myself. I achieve my goals, but setbacks don't devastate me. Why? Because I know what's meant to be will work itself out. Therefore a setback requires another way of looking at the problem, re-evaluating the direction. In some cases, it might not even be the direction that's the best for our happiness. Happiness is easiest to achieve when you understand everything around you is fluid, and adjustments, changes, even complete course changes might happen.
Some say we learn from our failures as well as our successes. Truth is sometimes we learn more from our failures than our successes. But sometimes, we learn the most about ourselves from the least expected places and times with no value of failure or success. I jumped out of an airplane once. Not because I was an adrenaline junkie or to prove I could or for the ex-boyfriend that got the jump for me for my birthday. (He got it for me because I asked although he tried to convince me to try it for months.) I was talking to a CPA from Atlanta who came to the jump site about twice to four times a month. We talked and she asked me why I didn't try it. "I'm not an adrenaline junkie," I told her.
She nodded and said, "that's not why I jump either." She had my attention. Everyone else always made a big deal out of the adrenaline. They needed that high. I asked her why she did then. "I learn something new about myself every time I get out of that airplane."
I was intrigued. What could I possibly learn about myself in a few seconds of freefall? She was right, for one. I learned a whole LOT about myself. Next, I'm a hell of a lot braver than I thought I was. I learned that I had a falling sensation that most people don't experience--no flying sensation--but the falling sensation wasn't like falling to the ground either. I felt the gravity pulling and that feeling you get when you are coming down on a trampoline. I learned that the adrenaline was almost too much for my taste; it took hours for me to stop shaking from the rush. I learned that I love the wind in my hair, my boys are everything to me, and I have a great life. Really, a great life. Life isn't about expectations of what you can get, take, or make. A great life is about enjoying life. You can work yourself to death, you can beat yourself up because you don't have money, because you don't have the "love of your life" or because you don't know what direction you want to take. But all of that, if you just let up the reigns and live, it all works itself out. Sometimes not the way you had thought, but that's part of the beauty of life sometimes. Some of the best things that happen to anyone of us are the things that we never imagined.
I'm a little saddened that the response "Happiness is infectious but misery loves company. I'd rather spread happiness than misery. LOL" might have made someone think they spread misery enough to accuse me of not being able to take a joke. I don't see how anyone could interpret it that way, but when I've been totally miserable I re-focused myself. I did volunteer work. The lowest low was with a physically abusive ex-boyfriend, who finally went far enough to hospitalize me, and I knew I had to walk away from the relationship. I was devastated, but instead of wallowing away in it, I took it as an adjustment. A time to help other women in the same situations and re-focus my life on my boys, my friends and family, and my schooling. Happiness was still there, even when the lows would cause tears or frustration. Expectation that everything would work itself out meant that I could still be happy about other things and not drown in my own frustration. Happiness or misery. It's a choice. It's your choice which you are. Just remember happiness breeds like misery does. Surround yourself with happy people and you'll find it comes to you easier. Misery definately loves company and will suck you into the black hole if you let it.
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