‘Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life’.
We rarely ask people if they are happy, have you noticed that? We see people daily, living their lives, working, participating in social activities, and doing what they do to fulfill their daily routines – sometimes almost robotic – but we don’t actually ever take very much time to really ask about the happiness of others.
The reason why I’ve decided to write about this, is because I was at a wedding last week. Now, it was the wedding of an old family friend, and while there, the bride’s sister and I caught up.
We spoke of what each of us has been doing, and as we haven’t seen each other in almost a year, she commented on my weight loss. I expected this in all honesty, as it is the first thing that gets noticed. I mean it’s a pretty big change. What I didn’t expect was the question that followed… She asked me if I was happy.
I’ve not been asked that actually. She asked whether this change was for me, and reminded me, that the women we have grown up around – my mother, her mother – are both curvy, confident women, and that our happiness shouldn’t come from pressure we feel from the outside world on the way we look… For a twenty-two year old woman, she is wise beyond her years.
For me, I am happier than I was, and happier than I have been in a long time. I also firmly believe that this isn’t wholly to do with my physical change, but more with a mental one. I’ve grown so much in a year, and have become so much more accepting of myself, which has changed my entire outlook on life.
I digress… My friend’s question too me struck me utterly by surprise, but it still resonates with me. This was because she cared enough to ask. People don’t really ask you this question. They – we – assume that when people talk about their lives, that they are happy. We don’t really look any further than the surface. It’s sad really… We are too self-involved sometimes, and I think we forget about the feelings and emotions of others…
So why don’t we try a little more, and a little harder to consider the happiness of others. A question such as ‘Are you happy?’ – direct as it may be – actually reverberates with people so much more than we realise. A simple act of kindness with a person’s happiness in mind, goes a long way. It could be a message just to see if they are okay. Compliment them, spread a little sparkle and happiness to them, not only for their well-being, but for yours too… So I leave you with this: ‘try to make at least one person happy every day. If you cannot do a kind deed, speak a kind word. If you cannot speak a kind word, simply think a kind thought’…
