After nearly 30 years of giving up dairy, taking up yoga, vowing to learn French and only managing to do each of these things until January 8th, this year I’ve decided to forget all the usual crappy resolutions and have distilled it down to one golden rule:
Put your own happiness first.
So many women spend every waking moment pleasing others – be it subliminally through societal pressures on our appearance or actively choosing to take on subservient characteristics in order to be seen as less aggressive or more amenable than our male counterparts.
The thing is, so many of us don’t even realise we’re doing it. When was the last time you stopped before taking on a new role and asked yourself: “Will this make me happy? What am I going to get out of this?”
I recently had a very painful falling out with a close friend. I’d like to say that at the ripe old age of 28, it was over something deep and meaningful like opposing views on how the government should handle the situation in Syria. But no. It was, of course, about a boy.
I’ll spare you the details but it ended up with me alone on a street corner late at night, watching said friend speed away in a cab with a guy I was pretty sure I had been dating for the last couple of months. It wasn’t great. After a tearful apology over the phone, I didn’t hear from her for a while. Six weeks later, I got a text out of the blue from her asking me if I was available to meet up for a coffee.
I didn’t reply, chalking it up to the chaos of Christmas but in reality I knew I wasn’t ready to see her again. This woman had broken my heart, not something I offer up willingly or often. Even writing this I have attempted to trivialise the overwhelming sense of grief I felt as I saw that cab drive away, knowing it was the end of more than one relationship, as if making light of it will somehow make the sharp stab of betrayal less painful.
I told the story to a very good friend of mine and admitted to feeling guilty about my radio silence when she stopped me in my tracks:
“Don’t. When she said she was sorry, she told you that your friendship was more important than anything romantic with him. But has she done a single thing to back that up in the time since?”
I knew she hadn’t. I knew very little because after assuring me that she was going to tell him they would just be friends, she didn’t get in contact for six weeks. The only upside to us meeting would be the slight easing of her guilty conscience. I would be left feeling miserable and deflated because I deeply felt two things: they were probably still seeing each other and I wasn’t over it.
So I decided not to meet up with her. I asked myself, “Would this make me happy?” and that tiny voice in my head that I so frequently ignore (because it’s my true self and she often comes out with crazy things like “maybe you should go easy on yourself” or “you’re doing great, you should be proud”) said “no”.
That honesty is what I’m taking into 2016.
When you put your own happiness first, you become a better friend/girlfriend/employee/daughter/sister. Saying yes to every single plan your mates invite you along to seems like the polite thing to do but when you inevitably have to cancel on people, they’re left feeling hurt and angry.
Telling your flatmate it’s totally fine for them to host a drum and bass party at your place complete with decks and speakers might make you cool to live with but when your TV gets smashed and one or more people have left one or more stains on your mattress, your flatmate will be confused when you explode with rage and invoice them for the damage (both physical and emotional).
If this golden rule seems selfish and unfair, it’s because I know that we won’t be able to truly follow through on it. Every day we have to suck it up and do things we hate, spend time with people we can’t stand and say things we don’t mean. But if we aim for pure happiness and fulfillment, then even if we only make it halfway we’ll still be a darn sight better off than we were before.
Or you could just quit smoking. That’s good for you too.
Words: Sophie Tighe