21: Musings
I cannot say that anything beyond this first paragraph is relatable to everyone but me. I do not mind if people do not understand everything I wrote here, but if you can relate or feel strongly about it, do not hesitate to comment.
Is Happiness a Choice?
I am not an optimist, but I will never see myself as a pessimist. At times, I can be cynical, and at others, I let fate have its due. I am one of those people who are the boundary between opposites. I have no problem making a choice or standing up for what I see as right, but before I do so, I define the shades of gray between opposing concepts. That being said, I will never see happiness as a choice.
You can call me slightly dilutional if you must, but I think that dilutions are a skill that anyone who does something creative should possess. but saying that all you need to do is decide to be happy is dangerously dilutional.
Happiness is an emotion; people should never impose one emotion over another. Emotions: the good, the bad, and the ugly are important parts of what makes us who we are. Recognizing how you feel, how that feeling came about, and how others feel is emotional intelligence; you cannot achieve that by forcing a single emotion upon yourself, that is just another form of repression.
Expressing how you genuinely feel is perfectly fine, but everyone should know that no matter how you feel, you always have a choice regarding your actions. happiness be damned, feel how you feel, but never let one feeling rule you. Emotions are only part of who we are, and not the entirety.
Honesty and Transparency
I consider myself honest about everything, but that does not mean I will talk about things that I consider private. The only exception I allow myself when it comes to honesty is when I write a story. Private matters should naturally be understood; they are boundaries that are set to provide a space away from any observational scrutiny. As to why I do not wish to be honest in storytelling, well, that is because a story is not a story unless you obfuscate, distort, embellish, or flat out lie.
In my life, honesty has a precept that I choose to adhere to: There is a difference between being direct, sincere, and hurtful. Of course, these three can be combined in different ways and still be considered honest, but personally, I like to take my time to find that balance between being direct and being sincere. That does not mean that my honesty will not hurt someone; it just means that the intent to harm is not a factor in what I say, write, or do.
Transparency is a different creature. Where honesty deals with things that you allow to be public, transparency is having nothing privet. I will not say it is impossible to be transparent with everyone, but I can only be transparent with a select few.
Leaving everything that you are exposed for another to see does not always happen in the most intimate of relationships. So, you have to ask yourself, if you truly want to know a person beyond what they show to the rest of the world? If you are truly willing to see someone stripped of all materialistic trappings and can gaze at them, witnessing their absolute thoughts, then you are ready for transparency.
I am more than willing to be honest and have people form an opinion of me, but if I am transparent with you, then you hold a special place in my heart and thoughts forged by the crushable that is trust.
Value & Values
Values are standards based on one's thoughts, options, or beliefs that typically guide people in determining right from wrong; value is applied to people who stick to their values. Value, no matter how you see it, sentimental, emotional, monetarily, or otherwise, is how we regard something’s worth; values can be seen by what someone sees value in.
Despair?
Despair is a shroud that defuses any concept of hope, it is often described as being in the darkest of places, where nothing you do or think matters; everything is pointless because there is nothing beyond the emptiness around you.
I am not ashamed to say that I have felt that way before and I cannot say that I will never feel that way again. Still, the question mark after the title of this section because if despair is truly the absence of hope, there would not be any kind of definition, there would no one alive to inform others how they felt.
The illusion that despair drops over someone is almost magical in nature. The cause can be seen, and sometimes it cannot; the feelings are undoubtably real, but only as seen by the person feeling them. Time and the sheer stubbornness of not wanting to give up is how I fight my way out of disparity, and at the time, I did not know that that stubbornness was the hope I was looking for while I thought I had lost it.
Please, do not get me wrong. If you have ever been caught in the embrace of despair and have torn free of that shadowed web of lies, you have my respect, but I also respect those who can admit when they need help. I do not care if you find that help from family, a friend, doctors, or your religion; just know, that help is not weakness, help is what makes us all stronger. No one got to where they are in life on their own, no matter how much they insist they did.
Laziness: Choice or Lifestyle
As a person who is lazy at times, I say it is a choice. Laziness is defined as being unwilling to work or use energy, and this should never be used to describe anyone who is tired and needs or deserves a break every now and then.
The factors that go into making the choice that justifies laziness are the reasons as to why something should not be done and have little or no reasons as to why whatever the task may be should be done. During that pivotal moment before the choice there is hardly any thoughts as to the consequences of not acting or avoiding a task; when nearly all of the things that we chouse to be lazy about are tasks that we cannot or should not avoid in the first place.
A lifestyle is something that a person wants to maintain, they put in the effort or time to have what they feel they need so that their life is up to a specified standard. A lifestyle cannot be supported an unwillingness to work at it or expend energy. You make the choice and you deal with the consequence, good, bad, or otherwise.
