Happiness is a Choice

Here I am, awake at 2:25AM, making a painstaking yet rewarding effort ofcreating this weird/senseless/who-reads-it-anyway post (painstaking, because Iknow that this will require an extensive thought organization; rewardingbecause I can finally liberate these smothering thoughts). I have just beenlurking around Twitter and Tumblr for the past hour and I was dazed -- evendisturbed -- that most of the posts were filled with complaints and rants. No, Iam not talking about those political “our government sucks” posts. I amreferring to those people who do not know any better than to blame nature andcircumstances 99 percent of the time.


Tumblr: "I hate my life"
Suffice it to say that I am not in my greatest mood whenever I see postslike this. It actually does not pester me if a person posts somethinglike this once in a while. But to say "I hate my life" online as if itwere the only phrase you know? That's just something that hugely bothers me. How can anyonehate his/her life? If you feel like you're the person I'm talking about,breaking news: life is amazing. It may not be picture-perfect all the time, butobstacles are things everyone has to face. As we travel this road morepopularly known as life, we will encounter numerous stoplights. Red lights maycause us to pause, but green lights will always reappear after a few seconds! Iknow that there are far more people who possess heavier problems than I do, butI am certain that those problems will not exist forever. Some of us are justway too impatient to wait for green light to reappear.


Twitter: (something like) "I am not great enough" or "Whydo I fail at anything I do?"
I understand that each human being has his/her own insecurities. I have myown ones, too. Insecurities are in-born for everyone, I suppose. But I constantlyget annoyed (self-pity can be very annoying in the long run) when people usetheir insecurities as an excuse to be full-time lazy heads and not do anything. They say that because they are "not good at it", there is no reason for them to try anymore. If you are one of those people:  instead of letting your insecurities faze you, why don't you just use them tobring out the best in you? Strive to be a better version of yourself every dayto defeat those voices inside your head that are always shouting "you arenot great enough". I assure you, once you start doing it, life gets a lotmore invigorating.


As cliché as it may sound, life truly has its ups and downs. Acknowledging that fact can already lift a lot of weight off your shoulders.I know that there will always be that one particular day in a year where youjust feel like cursing as many times as you can or hitting your head againstthe wall as hard as you can. It's okay to go through that day. You are a human. You are entitled to be sad, be angry, and cry. The importantthing is that you recover and move on. Do not waste your time focusing on theugliness of one flower if there are a lot more beautiful flowers around you.Happiness is a choice, not a destination. If you want to be happy, then chooseto be happy.


(Side note: Sorry for being a bit negative myself, but myongoing exposure to pessimists inevitably saps my optimism. Pessimism is verycontagious, isn't it?)