The opposite of happiness is fear. I know, I know, I too used to think unhappiness was its opposite, but I’ve thought deeply about why I’m unhappy and I had a breakthrough. I’d been fretting about so many things going wrong. I had a friendship-relationship that was incredibly complicated, in which many bad things had happened and I was afraid to try to salvage it for a variety of reasons. However, having so much negativity and uncertainty just meant I felt miserable.
Acting in spite of fear leads to happiness
It was only when I decided - in spite of my fear - to make the attempt to fix things that I started to feel happier. Why? Partly because the person in question means a lot to me and has brought a lot of value to my life, but also because shunning people just isn’t me. It was out of character for me to leave that relationship in limbo, but I was doing it out of fear. Thankfully the Universe gave me some help and things are much better, but it needed me to make the initial decision not to act out of fear before things could move forward.
I took control of my happiness
I’ve been self-reflective since my teens at least. Lately I’ve been focusing even more on my personal development in order to manage change - I’ve had a lot of Bad Stuff in my life in the recent past and now I have exciting (and scary) changes happening in my present.
In my teens, I thought of myself as someone optimistic. I felt like ‘I am a happy person’ was true of me, even on days when I wasn’t feeling that great and when things went wrong. I self-identified as “mindlessly optimistic”. Whereas, in my recent past, the result of lots of bad stuff assaulting me in quick succession was more misery than usual. Which lead me to doubt whether I could continue to be an optimistic person. Following a lot of soul-searching I decided yes, I can be. It’s up to me to be in charge of my happiness. I could either let the outside world choose whether or not I get happiness or I could choose it for myself.
Happiness comes from determination & commitment
Recently, I made the statement, “I’m making a renewed commitment to my happiness” and 10 days later I had this realisation about the nature of happiness: I can get back to happiness by breaking through my fears; so that’s what I’m doing.
It’s not easy:; I have bad days - just like everyone does - and that’s when it’s really hard to maintain the belief that being happy is up to me; but I do it. I have some excellent resources that help me on those days. Some of these include Take the brute force out of your fears by dissecting them (Escape from Cubicle Nation Podcast) and How to Overcome Your Fears (Trizoko). I hope you find them useful too.
Practical steps you can take now
I find it helps to do things that help me relax. For me this includes lighting candles, dancing and writing in my journal. Other things I do to feel happier include helping people, smiling and being grateful. It’s definitely worth taking the time to discover what works for you - think about what makes you smile, what makes you forget your worries, what makes you feel like you can take over the world.
When you’re more relaxed and confident you’ll have recharged your inner resources and will be in a better place to tackle your fears, thus leading to greater happiness for you and for everyone you encounter. (Because if you’re happy you’re more likely to make others happy too).
Why entrepreneurs should care about happiness
- You’ll get much more done if you’re happy and energetic than if you’re down and apathetic
- Act out of fear and enterprise grinds to a halt
- You deserve to be happy!
Finally, some sage advice on the nature of fear
“If you’re afraid, you’re wrong… The real purpose of fear is to serve as a trigger for growth, it’s to serve as a trigger to expand your consciousness to another level where the fear wll not exist any more… if you avoid your fear you halt your own growth, you hold yourself back.”
StevePavlina.com Podcast #008: Overcoming Fear
I overcome my fears; so can you!
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