Our happiness sometimes can depend on others, which we don’t always like to admit. Now, I know that I am being a bit too direct with the first sentence, but I have noticed that many people, including myself, have relied on others to make ourselves feel happy at least once in our lifetime.
Why do we do that? Who do we choose to make us feel happy? Is it the people we love the most who we depend on, and that is how we define unconditional love or true love? Is the dependence of others how we make ourselves prove to others or ourselves that we are worthy of love? These questions have been coming up this past week in my mind, and I cannot come to a conclusion or one single concrete response of what is or isn’t true. I am not saying that we will always depend on someone else to feel happy, but we also rely on all of our emotions when we do. When the other person is feeling sad, we also feel sad. When someone else feels excited, we feel excited for them. However, I feel like we misunderstand and confuse the meaning of empathy with codependence. I believe that we should feel happy on our own, with what makes us happy, and allow the other person to be pleased with what makes them happy. Then, we can complement and add to each other’s happiness. But we have to be okay with that if the other person is not there, we are still okay. It is not a question of needing that person to be happy but rather having a person in our lives that adds to our happiness.
So, I invite you to find what makes you happy and be with a person that complements your happiness and does not depend on each other to get it. This is not an easy task, but it is achievable, and I can say from experience.
Z.
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