The Flower of Happiness

(5 min read)

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“Happiness depends upon ourselves”

Aristotle

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Imagine you and me ...

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You want to be happy and I want to be happy. I want you to be happy and you want me to be happy. Let’s have a look at some of the most common ways by which we usually try to achieve this. Some will lead to success, some will seemingly lead to success and some are prone to fail miserably.

 

Imagine happiness as a flower. As unique as each living being is, as unique its flower of happiness.

 

Option 1:

I give my flower of happiness to you and expect you to care for it. What will happen? I completely lose control over my flower of happiness. It’s in your hands now and you will do with it whatever you wish or consider right. I can give you detailed instructions, but even if you handle it with your best intentions, my flower of happiness might wither and starve, because I am the only one who really knows what it needs to grow healthily and bloom in a steady and stable way. On top of that, you also have your own flower of happiness to take care of and you won’t have enough time and energy for any of the two if you need to split your attention between them.

The same applies if you give your flower of happiness to me and expect me to take care of it. I will always do my best, but will my best be enough for your flower?

 

It’s a lot of pressure and responsibility to take care of someone else’s flower of happiness. If it doesn’t grow and blossom, bad vibes are guaranteed. We’ll both become frustrated and annoyed. Maybe we even start accusing each other for the lack of health in our flowers of happiness. Not exactly a happy outcome, I would say...

 

Option 2:

Very similar to option 1, but still slightly different. In this setup I come into your life, we get closer and closer to each other and then, because I am such a caring person, I take hold of your flower of happiness and declare absolute responsibility over it. I really want to take care of your flower of happiness, whatever it may cost me, because I base my happiness on being there for others.

 

How would you feel about that? I assume that in the beginning we are all flattered and somehow… well… happy. It’s so nice to have someone care so much for you. Who wouldn’t want that? But at some point, you might feel that you’re constantly defending your flower of happiness; sometimes against too much water or too much sunlight, or against it being cut back in a way that you know is right. You try to set limits and ask me to step back and let you take care of it yourself and I become frustrated and feel rejected. Why could anyone reject love and affection? How ungrateful you seem to me. I have done so much for your flower and even prioritized it over my own plant so that yours is growing healthy and strong! (Or that’s what I think…)

This will definitely not lead to happiness either.

So what will? Maybe option 3 can shed some light on the matter.

 

Option 3:

We have a good and healthy relationship and we are really committed to sharing everything and communicating in an honest and open way and therefore we decide to dare take on the challenge of exchanging our flowers. I have your flower to take care of and you have mine.

 

Just consider this for a minute ...

 

How much power over our happiness we concede to each other! Trust is key if we want this experiment to have a successful outcome for the two of us.

 

In the ideal scenario I will check in with you whenever I am not sure about the needs of your flower and you will do the same for mine. When we suspect that something is wrong, we talk and have a look at it together. The beauty of this lies in the surprises that we will experience whenever I do something for your flower that you have never even considered trying and it works well. This way you gain knowledge about yourself and we can celebrate it. But most likely there will be many situations where I don’t treat your flower exactly the way it needs to be treated and even if I check in with you, it will constantly be put under a little bit of strain, just because I am not you.

 

And once we stop communicating well or once we fall out of love and have disagreements, we actually have the power to destroy the flower of happiness of the other. It’s a dangerous situation, because a lot of damage can be done that way.

 

Option 4:

I keep my flower of happiness and you keep yours. After looking at all the other options, this sounds quite reasonable, right? But if we do this, how can we share happiness, because that’s what relationships are about, right? I have some ideas on how that can work:

 

If we both keep our own flowers of happiness and make sure we give them all the attention they need, a lot of happiness is guaranteed to flow freely. Both flowers will grow, and blossom and we pick some of the colourful blossoms and give them away, sharing our happiness with each other or with anyone we want. And we can still be attentive and supportive. If one day you are tired, I can help you carry your flower of happiness to a sunny place. And if my flower of happiness is withering, because I am struggling with life’s challenges, you can bring me some fertilizer that will help to energise my flower. Those seemingly small gestures have incredible value and can make sometimes make all the difference.

 

If each of us takes care of our own happiness flower and they thrive and bloom, we can show this beauty to each other and feel, well… happy about it.

 

 

The relationships we have with the people in our life are as diverse as the people themselves. This means that we can easily experience all of the above-mentioned options in our lives. It also depends on how we grew up and what our role models in life were and are.

 

Observe yourself and the relationships you maintain with your loved ones:

• Where does the happiness responsibility lie in each of them?

• How satisfied are you?

• Would you like to change any of them?

 

Take good care of your flower of happiness or should you decide to trust and give it away, may it be in good and loving hands.

 

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