happiness

Smiling Inside

~ The Professional Introvert ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been learning a lot about myself lately. It’s amazing what you can learn when someone is suddenly paying attention and challenging your ways.

Last week I blogged about happiness and hope.

Happiness is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately…mostly because I have been happy.

A few years ago I went to a comedy club with some friends. When we left one of them asked if I had fun. I said that the comedian was pretty funny.

“But you didn’t even laugh.”

It dawned on me that I’m not very good at showing that type of emotion. I could really find something to be funny, but I would laugh inside.

Just like if I saw something worth smiling, I would just smile inside.

I didn’t have that physical release.

Why?

I think it could be that to show that emotion would be to open myself up too much. I like my masks.

They keep me safe.

Whether I have my earbuds in with no music; pretend talking on the phone; wearing sunglasses on cloudy days; or sarcasm, I use them all.

I’m good at deflecting a conversation to something else.

But that has been changing.

I have found someone where I want to laugh out loud.

I smile all the time – with my mouth.

When I say I’m happy, I’m not deflecting to avoid the truth.

She tells me almost every day that I deserve to be loved.

I’ve had a difficult time accepting that; but really, don’t we all deserve it?

Don’t we all deserve to be so happy that we can actually show it?

Right now I will smile for real just by reading a text. I even “lol”. Sometimes there may even be a snort mixed in there.

That release has been good for me.

Good for my soul.

I’m not coming out of my shell; I’m just enjoying the turtle life more.

What is Happiness?

~ The Professional Introvert ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been gone for a while.

Mentally.

Pressure kept building while I did my best to ignore it.

I stopped caring.

Stopped being happy.

Then someone took a tiny crowbar and entered my heart. Suddenly there was light on the horizon instead of the dark clouds that consumed me so intensely. Happiness once again warmed my skin. Love filled my pores. I realized I still had some purpose.

Sitting in the airport yesterday, she challenged me on something I said. She always challenges me.

It’s bittersweet.

Emotional.

I told her that she makes me want to be better. But did I really know what that meant? I said that I want to have the life where I can make someone else happy.

Seems easy enough, right?

She challenged me. “So for you, being better means making the people you love happy?”

At first I thought a simple, “Yes” was the answer. But I was boarding the plane and had a few minutes to think about it.

At what point does making someone “happy” destroy a relationship? Does it involve avoiding an argument just to make someone happy? Is it conceding just to avoid conversation? Is it the irrational belief that just by saying the right things everything will turn around and be ok?

Maybe I thought so. I’m not sure.

I would be challenged on that statement too.

Getting to my seat on the plane, I understood that’s not happiness.

It’s avoidance.

I’m good at avoiding. Diverting.

I’m happy when I can make someone happy, but not because I am looking for the things that make that person happy. I want happiness to be natural.

No, I NEED it to be natural. It gives me purpose. It gives me life. It gives me love.

Maybe I can overcome my struggles.

There is hope.

Hope.

Not just hope that I can “fix” something…hope that I don’t need to try to use happiness to fix the unfixable.

Hope.