My Happiness is My Responsibility!

14. May 2008 by Da Fu.

No one can make me happy unless I let them and I can make myself happy. Therefore, my happiness is my responsibility.

It is unreasonable to make someone else responsible for our individual happiness since it is an impossible task for anyone else. Happiness is a feeling and all feelings are internal. Stimuli that generate happiness one time do not necessarily generate the same feeling the next or any other time. How can anyone else except oneself know that? Waiting for someone who we have burdened with our happiness will lead to long periods between happiness and even periods of unhappiness. There are many unhappy spouses waiting for their spouse to make them happy. Taking the initiative to making oneself happy is a much easier way to be happy.

Yet, we should not be responsible for other’s unhappiness in pursuit of our own happiness. This may not always be possible. Ex-Gov. Spitzer of NY pursued his own happiness with a prostitute probably believing he was sparing his wife his happiness burden and not causing some “other woman” unhappiness. Ironically, he would have been better off having an affair since that apparently is the norm among his colleagues. Thus, their needs to be a ranking of things that result in our happiness and also cause others unhappiness. What is then done depends on ones moral values. There are no right or wrong answers.

We are responsible for our own individual happiness. So, stop burdening others and start being happy!

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