The fleetingness of happiness......

Life is a funny thing. True happiness is this rare and fleeting thing that can pass many by completely while others seem to be able to keep a grasp on it for longer periods of time and feel perfectly content.

A psychologist called Maslow has even developed a theory on this called the hierarchy of needs, with the highest point that any body can reach is self-actualisation. The theory starts with the most basic of physiological needs- food, water and sheleter. How is anyone meant to survive or feel happy if any one of these are removed and continues to progress with things like comfort and security in job or home. The need I want to talk about is self-actualization, which for many believe is only a fleeting achievement and easily taken away. Self-actualisation is when every other need in the hierarchy in the system is fulfilled and you literally are on top of that world. A good example for self-actualisation is an olympic athlete finally acheiving that gold medal. The feelings this provides will fulfill the self-actualisation need, but only for a temporary time before some other thing will come along which takes the shine away from it, the need to train harder and faster for the next competition. So for those athletes never lucky enough to get a gold medal may never achieve self-actualisation but then you have examples like Michael Phelps who have received lots of gold medals and thus have a prolonged period of self-actualisation.


For those who are interested these thoughts and this blog come from the fact I got engaged. This for me is one of my periods of self-actualisation. I could not be more happier than I am right now. However what I am failing to understand is why there are people out there, people who are supposed to care and mean alot to me are trying to take away my happiness by only uttering every single negative thought they can think of instead of just being happy for me. I am pretty certain that when my sister and brother both said they were engaged they just got 'congratulations' and 'when is the wedding?' and were not bombarded with questions such as where are you going to live, what about hospital appointments, what about getting your medication, are you sure thats a good idea, wont you miss people if you move away, what about your hobbies, will you give up scouts, are you sure its a good idea.

So to clarify my situation- yes i am engaged, yes in a few months time I will be moving an hour away from my home town to live with my fiance. Yes I will still continue to go to hospital appointments and take medication.

Fine be worried about me and miss me but let me enjoy my happiness for a short while before you bring these things up. I am not a naive 18 yr old, I did think about all of these things and they were talked about before a proposal even happened, please give me some credit.

I feel like I may very quickly tattoo on my forehead 'if you cant say anything nice or positive dont say anything at all'.

So now I have ranted and feel ever so slightly better for it and even made some use of my psychology degree (which I will also point out the same negative people over the news of engagement and moving house were also extremely negative about me going to university and oh look I survived and did do well there) I will end with a picture of my ring!