it’s okay to be happy

It's okay to be happy

It feels almost absurd to have to say it, and yet it needs to be said. It's okay to be happy. It's allowed. And in a way, this simple statement is hinting at the whole root of our difficulties as human beings. On the whole, the message we have grown up with, usually unconsciously, is that it's not okay to be happy. It's not allowed, at least not generally. Perhaps on the odd special occasion it's okay to be happy, but most of the time we have to be unhappy. That's really the message that many of us have grown up with.

Take, for example, a small child running around joyfully, shouting, making lots of noise, just expressing life in all its vitality. For many adults it's too much, and the parents will often suppress that overflowing, joyous energy by telling the child to be quiet, to be still, to sit down, don't make noise. It's a subtle way of saying it's not okay to be happy. It's not allowed. And that's just the beginning, really. There are many other ways where, if we are simply spontaneously, naturally happy, we begin to feel guilty about it, perhaps because most people around us are not happy, and we're the only happy one, and we feel that is somehow wrong. Particularly if we have a dependence on those people, perhaps again as a child, if our parents are unhappy and we are happy, it doesn't feel right. We have to join them in their misery. And also when we are older, if a friend is sad, it doesn't feel appropriate to be bubbly and joyful and happy. And it's a shame because happiness can be quite contagious. 

And if I am naturally happy, if I am in a happy state, without forcing it, without it being fake, if I am naturally in a happy state, then people around me will pick up on that and become more happy themselves. I am actually doing them a great service. And this is why I say it's okay to be happy. It is allowed.

What a sorry state of affairs it is, that this needs to be stated. We humans have somehow created a world where being miserable and unhappy is the norm. It's rather rare to find somebody who's just naturally, spontaneously happy. Of course we might drink alcohol, loosen up a bit, lose some inhibitions and feel happy in one way, until the alcohol wears off. And if it's not alcohol, we probably turn to some other stimulant, either some other chemical to put into our body, or some outer stimulation that's going to make us happy.

And yet it's our natural state to be happy. We don't really need something to make us happy. We simply need to allow it, to realise it's okay to be happy, and also, of course, to stop obsessing about all the things that cause us to feel unhappy, all our little grumbles about the world, our complaints, our worries. This is all mind stuff, head stuff, thoughts going round and round in circles. And their main purpose is actually to keep us feeling miserable, because society, it seems, needs that, allows that. I say to you it's okay to be happy. It really is.

So next time you feel a little bit of joy in you, for any reason or for no reason at all, allow it. Really enjoy being happy. No need to suppress it in any way. And of course that's what we're really all looking for: happiness. Most of us don't even allow it. It's time to change that. It's time to really, at a deep level, almost within every cell of the body, to realise it is okay to be happy.