Does Your Definition of Happiness Sabotage Your Life?

Do you ever wonder why you are not as happy as you would like to be, or not happy at all, for that matter?  Do you envy other people who appear so much happier and luckier than you are?

If you do, you’re not alone. I was unhappy for countless years until I finally realized what I was doing to myself. I got a break from my misery for several years, until I set another unrealistic definition of happiness for me to live by.  Here is how it all started…

Many years ago, I defined happiness as being married. When my seven-year marriage ended in a divorce, I was just 28, and still insisting that happiness was being married. I spent the next 15 years frantically looking for the love of my life. I lived for one thing and one thing only: being married. I became terribly needy, a quality that men find really attractive in a woman, as they run for the front door as fast as they can. I felt depressed, incomplete, undesired, and like life was terribly unfair. Why was the world depriving me of a husband and step dad for my son?

It took me a long time to understand what I had done. I had defined happiness in terms of something – finding the right man to marry – that was outside of my control. I was no longer whole either. I had become so needy that I was dysfunctional. Co-dependents go through a similar situation. They base their happiness on “saving” an addict partner or family member. People cannot control someone else’s behavior. In fact, it’s usually just the opposite: the addict affects the behaviors of the codependent person, who dodges the issues at stake, tip toes around the anger and abuse that ruins most of his or her days, and pretends that life is as good as it is going to get.

When you define what makes you happy, keep a realistic perspective on things. Define your happiness based on things within your control. Furthermore, if you find yourself saying things like “I will be happy when…” immediately switch your mindset to the here and now. You want to be happy now, not if or when… You want to enjoy the journey, not just the end result, because life is a journey, not an end result.

By Joelle Osias, MBA, Consultant

Author of “Get the Life You Deserve”

President and CEO, Osias International, LLC