I’m saying this again, happiness is a choice.

When I was a kid I knew a man who lived by the motto “happiness is a choice”. Back then I didn’t believe him at all because I couldn’t even begin to relate. I figured he only said that because, looking at his life, he had a lot to be grateful for. I believed if I had his things, then I’d be happy too. I lived the next decades of my life thinking he was wrong. Trying to get what he had. This made me a very negative person who made a lot of mistakes eventually losing everything I loved.

As I sat there with nothing left. There was no reason anymore to continue as I was. It was end it all there, or try something new. I thought of his words and smirked at how stupid they were. It if were so simple as to be a choice, everyone would make it. I very senselessly thought to myself, “well thinking it’s not a choice clearly hasn’t done me any good, so let’s try to believe it is”. At that time it was as foolish as it felt. Obviously this didn’t work. Things don’t just magically happen like that, but from that point on I made a series of choices that instead of validating my beliefs, did the opposite. Invalidated them.

Despite being diagnosed with clinical depression, I did what mentally healthy people did. Like working out. Studying interests. I went against myself wherever possible. Did it help? No. Depression doesn’t just go away like that. Still, I wasn’t about to confirm my lingering belief that happiness wasn’t a choice because that ruined my life. I didn’t want to go back there.

So I continued, focused on invalidating that idea by constantly saying it’s a choice even though that was doing nothing. I went on like this for years, stubbornly saying it’s a choice even though no part of me felt it was. It wasn’t. I knew that. Still I choked it out, sometimes through tears. The pain never changed, depression isn’t something that just goes away…

…but here’s what did happen. After overcoming myself for so long despite remaining the same I had unintentionally proved something. I could do that. The more I worked on myself, the more I was okay with suffering. After all this time with having none of my efforts to change pay off and being stuck exactly as I was no matter what I did, after all of that, I realized something. Saying happiness is a choice doesn’t mean you don’t struggle. I spent so long working hard thinking it would one day stop but it doesn’t. It just means you accept struggling.

Choosing happiness, at least for me, it was never about getting over it. Moving on. No longer hurting. It’s about living my best life no matter how much it does hurt. I’m grateful for all the pain I’ve experienced because now it doesn’t make me weaker by convincing me of what I can’t do. The opposite. It makes stronger by showing me what I can do. The deeper the wound, the deeper my love.

Whenever my heart bleeds, it’s not telling me make it stop or to run away like I always thought. It’s telling me to endure because the meaning found in that choice frees me from the prison I would know if I couldn’t make it. If I felt like I did before. As if there was no choice.

As paradoxical as this is going to sound, I discovered there is a choice in having no choice. The love I have now, it doesn’t care about how respected it is, or how much it’s taken care of. It cares about only one thing. Being free to choose no matter what I’m forced to go through.

All this is to say, the ability to make a choice isn’t about what you see, what you know, or even what you understand. It’s about the the path you don’t see, or know, or understand. After all, there is no choice in staying on the same path. Is there?


…maybe I can’t change who I am, but I certainly change where he’s going.