Why Linking Too Much Of Your Happiness To People Can Leave You Feeling Inadequate.

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I think that we can all agree that mostly everyone in this world wants to experience some level of happiness while we're here. I say "mostly everyone" because we also know that there are some people in this world that don't care either way. However, generally speaking, I think that we all want to experience happiness. Now what exactly is happiness? Happiness is a state of being that varies from person to person, and no two people will completely agree on what their definition of happiness is. I personally feel as if happiness is a state of bliss that we all desire. I also see happiness as something that must constantly worked on. I state this because depending on the level of happiness that a person is mentally able to achieve, happiness is a feeling that will be constantly challenged. We all know by now that the feeling of happiness is something that comes and goes. I see happiness as waves that are sometimes high enough to ride comfortably, but those same waves can also be low enough to not even ride at times. Again, it is a feeling that comes and goes. I've already pointed out that happiness is something that varies from individual to individual. However, I think that we can also agree that one of the biggest things in this life that brings us the most happiness is other people. Just take a second and think about all of the people in your life that you love and care for. I'm almost willing to bet that just the thought of these people probably made your heart feel full of joy. I do believe that the majority of our happiness comes from the relationships that we have with other people. However, I also feel that too many of us link too much of our happiness to other people as well. For this week's installment, I'm going to explaining why I feel that this can be a mistake in our lives, and how it can leave us feeling inadequate.

What's going on ladies and gentlemen? I go by the nickname of Brad H., and I'd like to once again welcome you all back to another installment of 'Brad H.'s Perspective'! I am here once again to give my perspective on a subject matter that I've been pondering on as of late. Through the content of this subject matter, I am hoping to bring a bit of inspiration that will hopefully help serve us all in our everyday lives. I'd like to thank you all in advance for those of you that are joining me for this week, and I hope that everything in your world has been full of peace and happiness. I know for a fact that those of you that are sports fans are probably happy. Last week was the start of the 2018 NFL season, and boy did it shoot off like a rocket heading into space. There was quite a bit of high scoring going on overall throughout the games on Sunday. Being that it was only the first week of the season, I don't feel like there was a lot that could be taken away from it. Now those of you that read my posts pretty frequently know that I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. We saw the Cowboys lose to the Carolina Panthers by the score of 8-16. I personally thought this was a pretty ugly game on both sides from an offensive point of view. I think the end score is a pretty good indicator of that. However, I think a lot of that can be attributed to how well both defenses played, particularly the Panthers. There were a lot of questions coming into this season about how the Cowboys offense would look without having a "go-to wide receiver." Again it is only the first week of the season, so I don't want to push the panic button quite yet. However, I do feel that the concerns about the shape of the Cowboys offense is warranted by fans. I get that this offense is built around having a strong running game, but a team can find themselves without a lot of options whenever you run into a defense that defends the run well. Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliot wasn't able to get much done, and quarterback Dak Prescott and the receivers besides Cole Beasley looked totally out of rhythm. Again, I want to stress that it is only the first week, but losing Dez Bryant and Jason Witten just may come back and bite this team. We'll see how this all unfolds in the coming weeks. Alright, I've talked too much about football, so lets get to the topic of the week of how putting too much of your happiness into others can leave you feeling inadequate.

Now this is the section of the topic where I give my usual disclaimer in regards to giving my perspective on topics. I make this a priority because I don't want people to get the illusion that I believe I'm always right, nor do I want others to think that I'm trying to change their opinions. We are all unique people that have different ways of thinking and seeing life. Since the idea that we're all different and unique applies to us when it comes to how we think and view life, it isn't realistic to believe that we're always going to agree. As I mentioned earlier, the goal here is to hopefully bring some inspiration to our lives, and I hope that the potential inspiration that I'm aiming to bring encourages us to open our minds to the ideas of others. Regardless of whether or not you folks agree with what I'm addressing for this week, I still appreciate every single person that spends a little time of your day reading this. So why did I choose the idea of how linking too much of our happiness to others can leave us feeling inadequate and unworthy? Well for one, I think this is a topic that I'm sure many of you can relate to. Being that we're living in an era of where social media is so relevant in regards to how so many people view their lives in comparison to others, most of us have probably engaged in this habit. Secondly, I myself have struggled with this in the past, and I'll concede that it is something that I still struggle with on occasion. So I guess in some ways that I'm going to be somewhat speaking from my own personal experiences on this topic. Finally, I feel this is important because I don't anyone out there feeling unworthy or inadequate. If you've lived long enough, the feeling of feeling inferior to others is probably a feeling that you've felt before, and we all know how bad of a feeling it can be. It is one of those feelings that can totally deflate your morale and the way that you view yourself. For this topic, I'm going to be bringing up a few examples of how we engage in this habit, and I'm also going to show why it is something that we have to work on avoiding. Again, I'm not perfect, but I'm going to do my best to get the points I want to make across. Lets go ahead and get into it.

There is no way to avoid people when it comes to interacting with them on a personal level. While there may be certain people that you may not care much for, the interactions we as humans have with one another is something that drives all areas of life. The reason I bring this up is to help establish the idea that having human connections with other human-beings is both natural and healthy. I wanted to be sure and get that out there because what I'm going to say next will likely sound like a contradiction otherwise. The very connections and interactions that we often have with other people; while a good thing for the most part, can also a bad thing at times. Why do I say this you may wonder? As with the theme of this topic that is being covered, we often link too much of our happiness to others. Now when I say that we link too much of our happiness to others, what exactly am I saying here? What I am saying is that there are too many of us that center too much of our entire well-being on the actions of others. Let me paint a couple of scenarios that I think are good at deducing my point. I'm sure that most of you have been in love with someone else at some point in your life. If so, how much of your happiness can you say was tied to the person that you were in love with? For most of us if we're being honest with ourselves, a good portion of it likely was linked directly to that other person. We know this is a fact because when that person hurt our feelings, or if the relationship at the time happened to come to an end, you probably went awhile not feeling much happiness right? Quite a normal thing, but nonetheless, a large portion of our happiness in that relationship was tied to someone else. The next example may not apply to many of you, but think about how many times you've been on social media and found yourself comparing yourself to someone else? Maybe you saw a woman that you liked with another guy, or you saw someone you know taking a trip out of the country, and you said to yourself; "Why can't that be me?" Though maybe a bit extreme, these are a few examples of how we as people tie too much of our happiness to others. One of the biggest problems with this practice is that it often leaves us feeling empty and worthless. Of course this is a feeling that none of us really want, yet time and time again we torture ourselves by putting too much emphasis on others.

So why exactly is tying too much of your happiness to other people a potentially bad thing? Besides what I stated earlier about it potentially contributing to having feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth, quite frankly, the people in our lives regardless of what your relationship with them are never guaranteed to always be in your life. Time and space always bring about changes, and the same logic applies when it comes to people. Why do you think people that were close at one point in their lives tend to grow apart as time carries on? There are circumstances in life that change people to the point where they can become someone you may not even recognize anymore. Though we may not want to acknowledge or accept it, the reality is that a person can walk out of your life at any time without any explanation. I'm sure most of you have dealt with the loss of a friend or loved one right? We all know how helpless of a feeling it is when someone that love and care for is no longer here. I think that we often try to paint an image in our minds that we are in control of things. We believe that if we do all the right things that mold a situation to our liking that we're always going to be in control of the circumstances that surround that situation. From my perspective this way of thinking is all wrong. The truth is that we have little if no control at all over what happens when it comes to dealing with people. The only thing entity in this life that I can think of that we're in control of or responsible for is ourselves. I can't remember off the top of my head at the moment the name of the topic or when I wrote it, but I recall mentioning in a previous topic how another person can never truly make you happy, and how happiness is an inside job. A person can only add to your happiness, but they should never be the end-all be-all of your happiness. Of course some of our happiness is going to be tied to people, but they key word is SOME! Again, it all starts within you, and we have to work on not surrounding our entire life around the actions of others.

So how do we keep ourselves from linking too much of our happiness to other people? I'm going to use an example from a film that I think helps puts this into perspective. I'm sure that some of you may have seen episode 3 of the Star Wars franchise titled "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith". In the film, the character Anakin Skywalker has steady visions of losing his wife, Padmé Amidala. After these continued visions of death and heartbreak take their toll on him mentally, Anakin seeks out the council of Jedi Master Yoda. After counseling Anakin on how to deal with his visions, Yoda tells Anakin to "Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose." Now some may think that is a bit extreme, and I can understand why since it is only a film. However, those words from Yoda were pretty thoughtful. Now how does this tie-in with the topic for this week? For those of us that struggle with linking too much of our happiness to others, we have to learn how to train ourselves to build a wall of happiness inside of ourselves first. You don't want to be a person that allows everything that others do to affect you in a way that brings you done in a negative way. Now none of us are perfect, so there will happen to be times when this will happen for most of us. However, it does happen, you don't want to dwell on it for too long. I think that happiness should be a state of being that can be controlled by us. I believe that when we link too much of our happiness to others, we have lost control of what our definition of happiness is. By doing this, we are allowing other people to define what makes us happy and what doesn't. Again, we cannot control everything in this life, but we can control the things that we choose to make us happy or not. In my opinion, this should never depend upon other people. We have to be willing to put things into the proper context, and be able to see things for how they are rather than what we want them to be. I'll end by saying that you are always an important and valuable person, and no one can ever change that. Even when other people may not see your worth, you are always worthy and valuable to someone.

Well that is all that I got for this installment ladies and gentlemen, so it is time to sign off for this time. This has been another edition of 'Brad H.'s Perspctive', and this is Brad H. saying thank you all once again for those of you that came through. Before signing off, I hope that there was some meaning and understanding that could be gained from this. I also hope that it is able to bring some inspiration to someone out there. If anyone wants to comment or give any feedback to to this topic, please feel free to drop a comment in the comment box. You can also connect with me on Twitter @BradrickH. I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the weekend, and keep the people that are being affected by Hurricane Florence in your thoughts. The trek that storm made from off the western coast of Africa to the states has been wild. Mother nature definitely ain't no joke, so stay safe out there everyone. Well I hope everyone has a good and positive week ahead, and I'll see you all in the next one! Till then, I wish you all the best! Peace!

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