Ever feel like doing something good or helping others out and then when you find an opportunity to do it, you feel delighted with yourself, over the moon even!
It may just be a small thing like carrying a bag for someone, opening a door, a smile, a good morning, but it can leave you feeling very pleased with yourself.
Some people say the only way to find true happiness is to make others happy and help them out. Here is a quote to think about:
“Happiness is a hard thing because it is only achieved by making others happy” Stuart Cloete.
Do you agree? Or do you find happiness in other things, in the everyday…
I have to admit as happy as it makes me helping others, (and it really does,) I think there is happiness to be found by ourselves when we can believe in positive thoughts about ourselves, when we’re in the company of someone we are close to, and we are relaxed, chatting, laughing… also when we can enjoy the beauty in the world around us.
Here is another quote:
Before befriending others, you have to be your own best friend
Before correcting others, you have to correct yourself
Before making others happy, you have to make yourself happy
It is not termed as selfish, but personal development.
Once you balance yourself,
Only then can you balance the world… Frankiejohn.blogspot.com
So this would make us believe that there is no point in trying to find happiness out there from things that we do, jobs, relationships, holidays, etc, until we learn that it comes from within ourselves and that we must find that happiness or peace, possibly through accepting ourselves, be nice to ourselves and only then should we concern ourselves with making others happy!
Some of you may say ‘Well I’m pretty happy, I’m fine and I don’t need to do any of this soul searching stuff – life is okay’. That’s fantastic.. if you truly already happy with yourself. Here is a test to check your happiness: do you allow yourself to get upset when someone says something horrible to you or does something to you that you felt wasn’t very nice? If this happens do you take offence and take it personally? When you can let go of what others think it is a liberating feeling. You no longer concern yourself with ‘he said’ ‘she said’ and ‘did he mean that or this’ etc.
The most important thoughts you will have in your life and those thought about yourself. So if you are being hard on yourself in any way, if the voice in your head (your own critical self) is mean and not being a comforting best friend then you do have some work to do on yourself, and you will find a lot of happiness when you find this self love. We do need to love ourselves before others, otherwise we are trying to find happiness externally from others when they may or may not want it, or may not react in the way we had hoped… there is no constant in life other than ourselves. We must find the love within and then let it spread from there. Then the acts of helping others are done from a warm happy comfortable place, where the reaction or thanks from the other person, is not the point – the simple act of helping is the reason you are doing it.