Recently Michael scrolled by a meme on social media that read “You’re not a pierogi, so you can’t make everyone happy.” You can substitute your favorite comfort food and you still won’t make everyone happy, yet we humans still try. Maybe it’s because we are still confused about what makes happiness. In a Moment of Motivation earlier this year we said, “Happiness isn’t in getting what you want. It’s in wanting what you have!” Could it be that simple? Can we be and make others happy just by being content? Would that it could. In truth, you can’t make anyone happy. You can make only you happy.
In Happiness or Joy, we described happiness as materialistic. We are happy with things, with people, with happenings. This compares to joy which is a feeling reflecting contentment that all is or will be right and good. Happiness and joy exist independently of each other. If we believe as we also said in that post, that “happiness is the immense gratitude of something good life brought about,” it becomes even clearer that you can’t make anyone happy. Not even a pierogi.
You can’t make someone happy because you can’t make someone be grateful. Gratitude is the quality of being thankful, another feeling, and feelings are within us. Only we can control our feelings. Are there not ways to even enhance the possibility of making someone feel happiness?
The most positive thing you can do to offer happiness to someone is to be happy for yourself and to be happy with yourself. You notice, we said what you can do to offer happiness to someone. Again, you can’t make someone happy just as you can’t make someone love you or make someone want to eat their vegetables. Or pierogis. All you can do is make others comfortable around you and offer them happiness.
In his book, You Are Special: Words of Wisdom for All Ages, Fred Rogers wrote, “There’s a world of difference between insisting on someone’s doing something and establishing an atmosphere in which that person can grow into wanting to do it.” You can say the same about happiness. Paraphrasing Mr. Rogers we can say there is a difference between insisting someone be happy and establishing an atmosphere in which that person can grow into happiness.
That atmosphere is manageable when you are happy with yourself. And again, happiness come from the gratitude of something good that life brought about. We are better to ourselves and in turn better for others when we remember the good in our lives. That may be one of the harder things we can ask ourselves to do. In Mindset Matters we explained how we process ourselves to think first of the negatives, not necessarily emphasizing the negative but more often minimizing positives.
We want to say, “Don’t do that,” and still we know that is nearly impossible to do. There are ways to flip that and emphasize the positive, or at least minimize the negative. In a recent Moment of Motivation we said, “Don’t complain when things go wrong. Live with what you can. Learn from what you can’t. Grow from it all.” That then leads to regaining your positivity. Increasing positivity increases gratitude for what you have and experience, and that leads to increased happiness.
We have said in many previous posts, if we want to be positive, enthusiastic, passionate, energetic people we should surround ourselves with positive, enthusiastic, passionate, energetic people. The person you spend the most time with is you. When you concentrate on what makes you positive, enthusiastic, passionate, and energetic you realize how much you have that you are grateful for, and that makes you happy. That then gives you something to offer to someone who might then realize how grateful they are to have you in their lives, and that makes them happy.
Only you can make you happy and only they can make them happy. You can however create an atmosphere where they can grow into happiness. Even after all the pierogis are gone.
You all are so true here. I think one of the problems we face today is we're not so self-aware that we truly know what our needs are and what will genuinely makes us happy. We look at others to see what makes them happy. Culturally we don't encourage self-awareness--everyone is trying to be like an influencer or someone they admire. Individuality can create a unique joy and happiness if we're willing to go down that road. Just a thought.