You Deserve To Be Happy (35th Birthday Post)

Hellos & hellos,

I have been writing my birthday blog posts for ten years now. And if there is one thing I have noticed in my writing is my constant hunt to prove to myself that I am happy with each year’s lessons and development. And if I am not, I will figure it out with some unenthusiastic reassurance.

But despite all that, I can feel that there is this constant underlying hum of trying.

Trying to be content with life, trying to intellectualize the things that happen to me and adding a positive spin to it. Trying to make the most of what I have. And most importantly, trying to be happy.

If I am always trying to be happy, when do I actually just get to be happy?

Happiness, I realized, is a very funny thing. The more I want it, the more I go looking for it, the more I force it, I don’t feel it.

It’s like I am chasing a butterfly. The moment it lands on what I think will make me happy, no matter how gingerly I try to approach it, it flies away to the next thing.

So how do I finally get to it? How do I run to it? How do I reach it?

Apparently, I don’t have to go anywhere.

I just have to learn how to sit still and let it come to me.  

Being Performatively Happy

Sometimes, we aren’t exactly true to the term happy. But to safeguard ourselves from feeling inadequate by someone’s else’s measurement of joy, we force ourselves to be happy unnaturally. We pretend.

And I am not talking about faking joy when you accept a gift you don’t like.

I am talking about manipulating your mind into thinking I am okay with this. I am happy with being underpaid at a safe job, I am okay with dimming myself so I fit in, I am fine with always accommodating everyone else’s mental health above mine, in the name of love. I am happy with my mundane routine, but my heart secretly wants to explore so much of life.

I am happy, I am happy. It’s okay, I am fine.

But just before I go to bed at night, once I have assured everyone externally that I am happy in some capacity, and after a particularly self-comparable doom-scrolling session, I post a couple of Instagram stories to again prove to everyone, look, see how happy I am. 

That’s when I notice that low hum of trying is back, like an undercurrent in my heart, telling me that this is all a lie. Not just to everyone else, but I also feel like I am lying to the true essence of who I am.

The Guilt of Being Grateful

Wow, look at you. How dare you be unhappy when you have so many good things going for you. How can you be so ungrateful?

But am I just being superficially grateful so I don’t have to deal with the guilt of being unhappy?

No, no, don’t be unhappy, you have such great friends and family around you. If you don’t stop this now, if you are not a happy person to be around, it will affect how they see you and then they will change their behavior towards you and you’ll regret it.

But doesnt true gratefulness come from not using it as a reason to cover anything else? I want to be grateful without expecting anything from it. I can simply recognize what I have and derive peace in knowing its there. It doesn’t (and shouldn’t) owe me anything.

So am I using this gratefulness tactic correctly? Am I simply recognizing the good things and using that to make me happy in some way? Or am I just listing them to pacify the side of me that wants something else? Something more?

What If I Cant Recognize Happiness?

What if I have spent so much of my life constructing a false sense of security in what other people think should bring me joy, that I have completely disidentified with my own standards of true happiness?

What if I never catch that butterfly? What if that hum never goes away?

What if I simply don’t know how to be genuinely happy anymore?

There came a point where I was so tired of chasing, so emotionally exhausted of pretending, so drained of always accommodating everyone else, that I had zero energy to keep up with any of the facades I built over the years.

I was so thoroughly spent that I had no option but to stop. So I did.

And the guilt of it felt like it was going to eat me alive. It felt like I was disappointing everyone and everything I worked so hard to acquire.

But there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t feel.

I was tethering between the baseline of feeling and feeling nothing at all.

And then because I no longer had anything to prove, nothing to show, nothing to parade, I was perfectly, emotionally still, and for the first time in a long time, my proverbial butterfly came to me.

Do I Deserve To Be Happy?

Apparently happiness is a birth right. But most of us are so used to giving away that meaning to other people, that we often question if we deserve it.

The people I love are struggling, so no, I don’t deserve to be happy because it feels selfish.

How can I be happy with there is so much wrong going on in the world?

How dare I feel contentment with most of my friends are making 5x the amount of money I am. Am I just being complacent and lazy?

Should I hide my happiness so that I don’t offend anyone else who may be going through something awful? I don’t want to be insensitive.

For the longest time I struggled with this guilt. I was so use to putting everyone’s needs and expectation above my own, that when something good happened to me, I often questioned if I deserved it. Or I downplayed it so much so that I don’t attract someone else’s negativity that will extinguish whatever little joy I am deriving from this happy thing. 

But why am I giving someone else the power to decide this for me?

Why am I letting someone else tell me what I deserve to feel and what I shouldn’t?

As long as I practice empathy and kindness, I can be considerate without feeling like I am compromising on myself to make someone else feel comfortable.

So yes, the short answers is I always deserve to be happy. And you do too.

How To Be Happy

The truth is, I didn’t have to wait for something to happen to me to be happy after all.

Because my happiness is not trapped by the milestones of my societal achievement and materialistic acquisitions. And it shouldn’t be.

I released myself from the hold and power of all these things that I thought would bring me joy. I decided to be free from the burden of waiting to be happy.

Once I brought the locus of my own emotions back into my control, I was free to just be happy with the things I have right now.

Realistically, genuinely, honestly.

I decided that if I am happy with this, nothing anyone could say or do will take it away from me.

No one gets to decide how I feel, but me. No one will force their opinions or emotions and make me feel inadequate for what I think brings me joy.

So for my 35th birthday, I decided to just be happy with I have.

At this moment, I decided to be whole heartedly content with everything without wishing it were anymore or any less.

For once I decided that I didn’t want to be smarter, richer, thinner or prettier. I am exactly who I need to be right now.

I made peace with the different aspects of my life that felt incomplete, and I decided that for now, it was enough.

I didn’t expect, I didn’t conform, I didn’t over analyze things, and try to drastically ‘fix’ it, so I can feel a false sense of accomplishment on completing another year.

I just accepted it. Earnestly.

Yes, right now, I am happy. That’s enough.

And then, the most amazing thing happened.

Because I radiated contentment, the world felt like it was rearranging itself to my newfound perspective and energy. I had the most amazing birthday, filled with the most serendipitous things, without even trying.

And everyone knows how type A I am with regards to birthday planning. I like to control every facet of everything so that I am not disappointed by the lack of effort and subpar outcome.

But for the first time in my life, I did not extensively plan things, and if I did, I did not force an outcome because whether or not I did XYZ thing, I was still choosing to be happy on my birthday. Nothing and no one affects it.

That also made me realize a very important thing.

Because I am happy, genuinely happy, I was able to influence good things in the lives of the people I love. I was able to organize and plan my own birthday events with the energy that made people want to participate.

And if they didn’t, I let that be too. I wasn’t going to force you to be happy on my account.

Energetically, I am going to be where I am, and if you like to join me, you are welcome to. And if you don’t, then that’s okay too. But now if someone else projects their emotions on me, it no longer has any control over me. I won’t let it.

As my 35th birthday gift, I decided to give myself the permission to be unconditionally happy.

Without the unrealistic expectation that this type of happiness will last forever. Because once it chooses to go away, I will readily make space for whatever comes next. Whether that is another type of joy or just the satisfaction of being present with life’s ebbs and flows.

But from now on, I get to decide what I feel.

So happy happy birthday to the most amazing person I know. With each passing year, I hope you get to discover more sides to yourself to fall in love with. I hope you always find new ways to grow, to surprise yourself and let life surprise you with how much it has to offer.

You deserve to be true to life, you deserve to express authenticity without judgement and you deserve to get everything you wanted.

ALSO GIRL YOU JUST SAW &TEAM LIVE IN KUALA LUMPUR, HOW CAN YOU NOT BE HAPPY RIGHT NOW.

Ahem, that post is also coming soon, but for now, here is to every year just getting better and better beyond your wildest imaginations.

Because you inexplicably, wholeheartedly, undeniably deserve to be happy.

I am always proud of you.

Niki :)