Being Happy Where You Are

The hardest thing I have ever been asked to do was to be happy where I am. What does being happy have to do with the situation I'm in? How will it improve it? The situation I'm in makes me unhappy. I'm not content with the situation I've been put in. What does it mean to be happy? 'Happy,' is to feel pleasure or contentment. In order to feel happiness you must be open to feeling pain. 'Pain,' is trouble or suffering. When you're at a stage in life were you feel helpless and powerless, how can you feel happiness again?

My new job is very demanding and I was not fitting in with the staff. There was one girl who made my time difficult. It was known that she gives me a hard time on purpose. I had enough and put in my two weeks. This is before I had any job lined up or any plan at all. I let my emotions command me, to the point of an impulsive act. I was not happy at that job, so I did not see any reason to stay. My Human Resources manager stopped me before I quit. She talked to her about the environment of our office and how it can improve.

I did feel like a
child running to tell the teacher but I was happy with just leaving. I'm still at the job but part-time for now. Until I find something that fits my personality better. At this point I'm at a job I don't like. The remaining question is how can I find happiness in a less than ideal situation?

I read a wonderful article by Michelle D'Avella about What It Really Means to be Happy.  D'Avella provides strong points in her article. Happiness is a relationship and not a constant state. Too many New Age books and gurus talk about being happy. People cannot be happy all the time! A relationship accurately defines happiness to me. My relationship with happiness has its ups and downs but I work on it everyday.

The second point is you cannot find happiness in other people, only in yourself. In the case of my job I sought approval from management and a workplace bully instead of myself. That lead me to make a rash decision.

The last point is happiness is only experienced with pain. Pain allows us to feel happiness and only with that do we know what happiness is. I accept my experience as a learning lesson. I learned to not let to opinions of other sway my judgement. I learned that not everyone is going to like me and that ok. As long as I love and respect myself, that's all that matters.