I know that it used to be Sunday Sayings, and maybe some day I’ll switch it back, but I have a saying to share and it’s Saturday. (Take that rigid perfectionism!)
The Happiness Project has an interview series where they ask different people the same questions regarding happiness. (An aside, I have an interview series I’ve been dreaming up for awhile, so if you want to be interviewed, let me know!) One of my favorite questions from this series is, “What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?” Last week, Gretchen ran an interview with graphic novelist Phoebe Pottsand she gave the following response:
At 18, I thought that if I wasn’t happy, given all my good fortune in life, that there was something wrong with me. I would feel ashamed that I was not more grateful. Now I know that happiness is one feeling from an expansive palette of emotions. And that experiencing all of them as they happen, however painful some of them can be, makes happiness so much sweeter when it comes back around. I mean, now I can recognize the real thing.
Her answer resonated with me. So I sent it to my parents, the perfect trees this apple fell from, and my father wrote me to (uncharacteristically) share that it resonated with him as well. I have been given so very much, I actually feel as though I owe it to the universe to be perfect. I have been given a wonderful family, a top-tier education, financial security, and a life of privilege. The absolute least I can do is be perfect; I have no reason to not be.
Faulty logic aside, I thought that being perfect meant being happy. I was disappointing the universe if I felt other emotions. And as a very sensitive girl, I felt a lot of emotions which often ended in me feeling guilty. I thought she used such beautiful language when she described happiness as just one of “an expansive palette of emotions” and I’ve learned how much healthier my body, soul, and relationships are when I allow myself to experience my emotions as they come. And luckily happiness, and my new favorite, contentment, do come often.