Blog 426 – 10.6.2016

It took me the greater part of my life to learn that it is impossible to make anyone else happy. If you still happen to believe that fantasy I hope that you too will stop counting on anyone else to make you happy and that you will give up the error of thinking that if you just loved a little deeper or loved a little stronger that you could make that unhappy person in your life happier. It does not work that way. It never has and it never will. Only you can make you happy, not even the God of the Bible ever promised to perform that magic trick for us.

Having said that, probably too bluntly and with too little compassion, making yourself happy is not the mammoth task you think it is. I mean really, most of us learned to masturbate at an early age and making yourself happy is easier than that and without the work, without the concentration, without the pornography, without touching yourself, and without the sex toys. The way to make yourself happy is just to hold a happy thought in you heart and mind till it makes you smile.

I was waiting behind a lady in Walmart the other day and she was wearing a gray hoodie with a beautifully embroidered Eeyore, from the Winnie the Pooh stories, on the back. I had to comment. So with my biggest brightest smile I caught her eye and said, “I bet someone else bought that for you and not because of your bright outlook on life.” She almost smiled and said it was true that someone else had indeed bought it for her. If you don’ know Eeyore, he is the sad little stuffed donkey that always walks on the dark side with his own personal dark cloud overhead where ever he goes. We all either know people like that or we are people like that- always short on smiles and happy endings. Those of you who knew my Mama know that hers was a sad story with a tragic ending. She chose to take her own life in a corner on her own back porch by putting a gun in her mouth and pulling the trigger. She did it there because she wanted to make as little mess as possible for those who loved her to clean up. Too late, Mama, at least for those of us who felt guilty for not trying to do more to make you happy. Trying to blackmail others into treating you nicer by making them feel that your happiness is their responsibility is a sick game with no winners.

I remember an early HBO Sopranos episode where Tony’s Mom has taken to her bed bemoaning her miserable life. Tony ever the dutiful, if psychopathic, son, comes to visit and asks what he can do to make her feel better. Her classic line is, “Just stab me in the heart.” Soon after Tony is seeing a shrink for his panic attacks. But we cannot blame our unhappiness on our parents anymore than on our children, or on our husbands, or on our wives, or on anyone else. We are responsible for our own happiness. When we finally admit to ourselves that we, no body else, are responsible for our own happiness, that we by our own thoughts, words and actions have created our world then we have three choices – continue to be miserable and try to make everyone else around us miserable too, take my Mama’s brave, sad, painful, and messy way out, or we can think that thought that puts a smile on our face, then another that makes us chuckle, then another that causes us to take a baby step closer to a brighter happier life, then another that causes us to utter a hopeful and encouraging word to someone else. By Jove, I think you’ve got it, and that makes my heart smile.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White