Happiness: A Matter of Choice

All my life, people have always known me for being a total snob. Personally, because it has always been a total-stranger-turned-friend’s first impression, I sometimes believe I am a snob. However, for people who can get pass this front, a wall I built for reasons only Psychology can explain, I am regarded to be more than just a snob... or so I think.

A very special person asked me once, “Why do you always keep yourself away from people who want to be your friends?” and I simply answered, “I already have enough number of friends.” Yet, this special someone is very inquisitively challenging and followed it up with, “Does that mean you have to put up a wall and not allow yourself to have more friends?” At that point, I did not have an answer, and since then I have spent more time thinking about building friendship than thinking about my career or about my special someone.

Contentedly, I have a sufficient number of friends. Friends who I am sure will always be there to help out. Friends who will be there to watch movies with me if I would be single again (but knock on wood and hope this nightmare will not happen ever); friends who will be sharing their moments of laughter and tears with me and I to them. I have built friendship with people I value so dearly since I met them the first time. These are the people who bring me joy – happier when I am already happy and turn me happy when I am sad. I often prefer confiding things with them over my family or relatives. I choose them over any other group there is if I seek happiness in my day.

However, will it hurt me to let new people come into my life and let them be my friends too? I realised that as a person, with life, my sole goal is to grow. It has always been my motto, “I never hope to be better than someone else but myself.” I may be achieving this at some point but how can I fully attain self-actualization if I enclosed myself in my imaginary capsule of security, a society of just me, my family and relatives, and my friends? I also came to realise that the friends I have now make me very happy in whatever situation, their number may be sufficient but will it not be better to have more of people who will be my source of happiness? I have asked myself a lot of questions regarding this situation and there is only one answer, “it’s time to let more people in.”

Recently, I have observed that I veer away from negative energy. I do not want to talk to people about something that is pejorative about anything or anyone. I tend to not like reading tweets on twitter that are insults, complaints, or verbal attacks, or anything of that sort. In addition, instead of confronting these people who are negative, I tend to just avoid them to keep myself away from being misinterpreted or worse get into trouble with them.

I have become a person who chooses to be happy and positive every day, and I believe it is just timely for me to let new people come into my life for me to have more people to be my source of happiness when I feel so negative about the world and more especially, for me to have more warriors of positivism so that it can create a domino effect until the very last person we all interact in a day, a week, a year, or a lifetime. My point being, if have consistently been happy with my friends, it is time to be happier as I choose to let new friends come into my life.