I have a lot of friends who struggle to make the right choices in their lives. While there are many wrong decisions to make (the world is full of them), I wanted to talk about one specific wrong decision that people make every day, one that I have made before.
This next part is for people who have friends who are struggling to choose happiness.
I have a friend who recently chose to start hurting herself again. She's done it before. She feels like when she hurts herself, she's releasing that negative energy on herself instead of others. Since she's doing this, no one else will get hurt. Right?
No. What she doesn't realize is the effect that she is having on the people who care about her. As her friend, I care about her. I know that the decisions she has made are going to have a negative impact on me and her friends & family. She doesn't realize it. But in hurting herself, she's hurting anyone and everyone who cares about her.
It hurts, to sit by people and watch them destroy themselves, knowing that you can't stop them. Knowing that they have to choose to want to live, and that you can't force them to make that decision. You can protect them. You can temporarily stop them from hurting themselves, you can stop them from attempting suicide, but you can't always be there.
You can't always be there. It's a horrible realization, but it's one that everyone who has a friend struggling like that has to come to. If they are really trying to kill themselves, then one day they will succeed.
That's something I've had to accept.
I'm not saying that there is no hope. I'm not saying there's nothing you can do. I'm saying that ultimately, it's up to them to choose to want life.
Sadness is inevitable, but at the same time, it's a choice. Here's my list of things you can do to choose happiness.
1: Don't spend your time with people who make you feel like there's no option other than sadness.
Don't give them any attention. They don't deserve it. You'll just be feeding them more and more. It's what they want.
2: Don't let negative thoughts go through your head. Sometimes you can't help but think something negative. I get that. But you can choose to think about something else rather than thinking about it over and over and over again. Like I said before, that'll only lead to self condemnation. To avoid thinking about those things, you can do something else that requires your full attention. Read a book. Talk to a friend (Actually TALK to them. Texting is not going to help you, because in the time that you are waiting for a response, you can turn your attention back to the negative thoughts).
3: If you are dealing with personal problems such as a broken home, bullies, cyber bullies, or anything else like that, you need to talk to someone right away. These things can be the source of your sadness. If someone or something is spouting out sadness, you won't be able to choose happiness. These problems can all be fixed. You can talk to a parent, trusted adult, teacher, etc. and they will get you support. I wouldn't recommend just talking about these things to your friends. While they can help support you, they won't be able to get you any help and they can sometimes give you bad advice.
Don't ever, ever choose sadness if it can be avoided. Choose happiness! We live in a big, beautiful, lovely world full of so many great opportunities! No one wants to be sad. No one should want to be sad. Anyone telling you that sadness is the answer is lying to you. Don't believe their lies.
Be happy. Choose happiness.
Note: I'm not really talking about clinical depression in this post. I intend to write a post that goes more in-depth as far as my opinion on that goes.
