INDEPENDENT! ... not single.
One of the most burning questions in my life is How to be happy single. Conventional wisdom over the generations have always said that the key to a happy life is to get married and start a family. Societies throughout the generations have followed this philosophy almost without question. That is... until now. So we now have to ask ourselves the question are married people really happier? I have read articles on the internet giving conflicting conclusions about whether or not happiness really has anything to do with someone's marital status.
Ultimately, I have decided that it really depends on your outlook of life and what your life goals are. There are some who want to be married and start a family while others just want a successful career out of their biggest passion in life. It can also depend somewhat on your character. Some work better in groups while others prefer to work alone. Some gain energy with other people around them while others lose it. Some are happy having lots of friends in life while others prefer just to have that one really good companion.
One thing about life on this day in 2016 is that it is not the relationship itself that makes you happy, but rather the thoughts behind of the relationship. That is the thought (and not necessarily the reality) that there is somebody out there that can make you happy for the rest of your life. However, for most of us, this will prove to be only a pipe dream and with marriage rates going down and divorce rates going up virtually across the board, maybe we need to re-think what it actually means to be happy in life.
Can we be happy on our own? Of course we can. There are many ways of making ourselves happy in our own solitude from doing our favourite hobbies, to eating our favourite food to having a walk in the park to listening to our favourite music. Ultimately, we can create our own happiness be being free of the thoughts that make us unhappy. Basically, happiness is simply the lack of unhappiness.
Perhaps the most prominent reason that people feel the need to find a romantic partner (or even just a friend in some cases) is loneliness. Loneliness is a topic that I have covered in detail in the past on this blog site. However, it has to be said that I think loneliness to this day is still a relatively misunderstood thing. Many people believe that loneliness is simply being on their onw when in fact, loneliness is the feeling that we have when we are on our own. It is the shame and guilt that we feel when we our on our own because we often put ourselves under pressure to to have friends and be friends with other people. Loneliness is also the feeling of dependency of other people making them happy in some way; and that takes me nicely to the crux of this post.
When we think of ourselves as 'single' in the context of intimate relationships, we often think of our lives in terms of lack; who or even what we are lacking in our lives. There is always an aura of negativity when we have to refere to us as single, which is basically saying that we are lacking someone in our lives. This leaves a metaphoric hole in our hearts where we don't even feel like a complete person. Notice that when we say that we are looking for our other half, we are essentially calling ourselves a half! Do we really want to live the rest our our lives as 'a half'? What a terrible thought! Do we really want to be 'half' people living 'half' lives? This is the whole point of this post. We want to be whole!..not half. Who on earth wants to be a half person living a half life. Life is meant to be lived to the full, not half. We want to a WHOLE...not a hole! (Yes, the English language does strange things like this. Two words that sounds the same but are spelt slightly differently with different meanings. It's amazing between feeling complete and incomplete can be just one letter. (or two))
So, how do we we become happy single? Well... the answer is kind of the title of this blog post.
STOP THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF AS SINGLE AND START THINKING OF YOURSELF AS ... ... INDEPENDENT!
Doesn't that feel better? Notice how the word independent makes you feel less ... well ... dependent. However, this is not to say that you will never depend on anyone or anything doing certain things to get a desired result (we all need help from other people sometimes) but it will make you feel a lot stronger emotionally and help you focus on the bigger picture in life that is the picture of your own happiness. Yes that's right! You own happiness that you gained ... on your own. As Thich Naht Hanh once said, "Happiness is available, please help yourselves."
Ultimately, we create our own happiness. which doesn't require other people to give it to us. We can still look for our partners and friends but now we can do it with without the perception that we need them in order to make us happy. Once we realise that we can get our own happiness in life, We are free!
NOW GO OUT THERE AND ENJOY YOUR INDEPENDENCE!
