For the past several weeks, I’ve been challenging myself to embrace this concept: “You are allowed to be happy.”
For a long time, I have operated under the belief that I only deserve to be happy once in a while. It’s sort of an unspoken rule/superstition that I have developed over years of dealing with mental health issues. When you suffer from mental disorders that affect your mood, happiness can feel like something that only happens to you when fate feels generous. I have explained to counselors several times before that I just don’t think happiness is in the cards for me—my default mood is sadness or apathy, and I only experience alleviations from that (A.K.A. happiness) once a week or so, if I’m lucky. I’ve also subconsciously come to believe that I only deserve happiness after a long period of depriving myself of anything nice. I fall into patterns of working myself to the bone, doing homework for hours on end for days and days because I feel like I need to experience difficulty before I deserve any amount of happiness. This is not necessarily a horrible philosophy to live by, but it’s something that has caused me a lot of anxiety and burnout, and therefore I can’t keep doing it.
There are a few strategies and routines I’ve been following to make myself happier the past few weeks. The first is indulging in things I love doing. Whatever I’ve felt naturally drawn to recently, I’ve followed that draw and found happiness. When I want to be alone and read a book, I go to my room and read a book. When I want to get an iced coffee, I head to the cafe on campus and get an iced coffee. When I want to relax and do something creative, I pick up a paintbrush and paint whatever I want. It sounds simple enough, but it’s been hard to allow myself to do these things. I often think to myself “I don’t really deserve this right now,” because I hadn’t done any hard work or experienced some difficulty to warrant a reward. But I’ve forced myself to set that mentality aside, and allow myself to enjoy things.
The second thing I’ve been challenging myself to do is have less anxiety. Obviously, as a person with anxiety, it’s not something I can magically make disappear; however, I am able to talk myself out of stressing about minor things that would normally bother me. I do this through in-the-moment reflection, asking myself “Alright, what’s going on right now? Why am I stressed about it? If there’s no good reason, then I’m just gonna let it go.” It’s kind of like mentally relaxing clenched muscles that you didn’t notice were clenched. This is an exercise I’ve been doing with myself for years, so I have practice with it, and I find it becoming more and more successful the more I use it.
A new philosophy that I’m trying to adopt through all this is that there is no limit to happiness. This does not necessarily mean “You need to be happy all the time,” it simply means “You can be happy whenever you want.” You can have a good day if you want to! And you can have a good day again tomorrow! There is no reason happiness can’t occur twice or three times in a row. You don’t need a good reason to be happy, you can just be happy.
Think right now of one activity that makes you happy. Painting a picture? Wearing your favorite shirt? Watching a YouTube video? Listening to your favorite song 10 times? Walking to the store and buying your favorite food? Running on the treadmill? Whatever it is that makes you genuinely happy, go do it. You are allowed to. As long it’s not hurting anyone (or spending too much of your money) get out there and let yourself be happy. Stop waiting for permission to feel joy, and go seek it out.