I just want to be happy

happyIs that asking too much, to simply be happy. I want to smile, laugh and just enjoy my life.
Would it be out of line to expect you to make me happy? Can you please just say and do things that will bring me joy?
I’m thinking that this should be a fairly easy thing for you to do. I don’t have any need to hear your disturbing emotions, I’ve done nothing for you to be angry about, and I think I am a pretty nice person.
What’s that, you say you can’t control your emotions? You feel that I am somehow responsible for your unhappiness?
Well, if I am responsible for your unhappiness, then obviously you are responsible for mine. And since you are not making me happy, I will have to have to move along and find someone else who will make me happy.
But what if the next person I speak to also is unhappy? Do I keep moving on until I find someone that will make me happy?
Is there anybody in the World that can make me completely happy?
The answer is, absolutely not!
It is not up to you to make me happy, nor is it up to me to make you happy. We are all responsible for ourselves and our own minds.
I have come to realize, through my practice, that I can smile almost anytime I wish. Regardless of your suffering or my own, I can still choose to smile. My happiness is not contingent or dependent on yours or anyone else’s.
Since I know this to be true, I see there is no need for me to suffer because of your disturbing emotions. Actually, there is no need for me to suffer disturbing emotions myself, as long as I simply observe them rising and falling away. Without adding a storyline, and by not attaching to these feelings, they simply pass.
I am compassionate, and wish to ease your suffering if I am able. But I see that I need the wisdom to understand that suffering with you accomplishes nothing for either one of us. This is a difference between empathy and compassion.
Perhaps this is where the saying “misery loves company” comes from, as I don’t think any of us like to suffer alone. We want to drag others into our “story”, which only causes more suffering and further fans the flames of ignorance and delusion. I hope you can see that there is clearly no benefit to the self or others in this action.
But if I am to be mindful, and truly act out of loving kindness and equanimity, then I have to allow this sadness. Only by our own love and acceptance can we release this feeling inside our minds. This is our own inner peace.
Now you are happy. You did it all by yourself. It never was up to me to make you happy, or you to make me happy.
Smile to yourself, and see this is available to you right now.

May you be well, happy and peaceful.