Happiness is in the Eye of the Beholder

I've been waiting to use this piece of writing for a while and, to be perfectly honest, I don't know why I have been holding it hostage for so long. The thing is that I don't get sent much in the way of guest writer material and I guess that I've been keeping it 'special' for a while - something in the bank for a the day when writer's block reigns supreme. The thing is that I'm not struggling to write stuff this week but I felt that I would go for a little bit of variety. It means that I now have no more guest writer pieces and so I'm asking for more - people always seem to love them as well. The great thing about the material that I've got for you today is that the person doesn't think they are that good. I think that it's true that some people just can't get to grips with writing but my feeling is that everyone has something to say no matter how 'bad' they think they are. Don't compare yourself to the stuff that I write every week for the very reason that I get quite a lot of practice. Most people have the natural ability, it's just whether they choose to hone that ability as I have. Anyway here's my most recent offering from a guest writer; someone that has more talent that they know:

We all know a person whose smile never fails to capture our attention and it always, unbeknown to us, causes us to crease a smile in return. Such a smile seems to uplift and elevate our mood, even if we are having a bad day or are just suffering from general fatigue. We are thankful to that person and at the same time we may ask ourselves - "How can they always be so cheerful?"  We may wish to be the same, we may wish we could forever bask in this happiness which the other person never seems to be devoid of.

But behind that seemingly perfect smile, there may be a person who is breaking.

I'm not suggesting in any way that all cheerful people may be suffering on the inside. No, not at all, but sometimes it is the person who "wears the biggest smile, who is in need of the biggest hug." This is what a friend taught me. And the more I think of it, the more truth I see in it.

This person essentially wears a gloss of happiness, in an attempt to cover up the cracks. This person will never share their troubles, because they make sure that no-one will ever know. But why would they do this? Why would they not want to tell? The reason is one which is selfless - they do not want to "burden" others with their own problems.

There seems to be this unwritten expectation that "if I feel down, you should revoke all happiness and feel down with me because you are my friend." And of course your friend will inevitably feel sad for you anyway because you are their friend.

But the smiling person doesn't want this; he doesn't want you to be saddened or to feel like you have to be saddened for him. He smiles only for this reason, to see you smile. He wants to see you laugh and he'd never want for you to feel unhappy.

But on the other hand the friend wouldn't want this for him either. Who knows how the friend would feel when they find out that all this time, this person has been hurting every single day, without ever giving anyone even a faint signal of their pain. The friend would now feel sadness and the person who always smiled would have failed in their objective anyway - their friend would be left sad. Sad at the smiling person’s situation, but even more sad at the prospect that he went through these ordeals alone. One day or another the friend will find out, the gloss will vanish. 

The point I'm trying to make (and perhaps rather unsuccessfully at that!) is that as friends we want to be able to partake in both each other’s happiness and sadness. We should never feel like our problems will burden the other. There is always that one person among us who wears a mask - but they shouldn't have to. The masked, smiling person will always be there for us, and so we should be there for them. They would want to help us through our problems and we would want to likewise.

It may not be people that we know or the ones who always smile. It may be that oddly acting stranger in the street, or the acquaintance who may have left a first bad impression. It's human nature to judge so we may have reservations about them or immediately take a dislike to them. Their characteristics may be defined from their past experiences; the acquaintance may have acted a certain way because this is what his past has taught him, the stranger may be odd, acting out of their own instability. We can never know what goes in people's personal lives unless we are told. Someone who radiates happiness, or who appears to act rudely, or particularly strange may be dreadfully unhappy in their own family or personal life. So before we declare that this person is weird, rude, this, that and the other, we should firstly consider that perhaps there’s a deeper reason for this behaviour. Ultimately, it would be best to not judge at all.

If there is a smiling person, the one who hides their feelings reading this, take an important step and tell someone who you trust what's wrong. They'll feel better that you did.

Well there you go. It's a natural reaction to one's own work to be critical and the person that who wrote the above piece is one of the most self-critical writers I know. This person writes in such a way that makes me look at my own writing a way that makes me want to hang my fingers up, as crude as that sounds. Just give yourself a bit of time and you'll be producing the same quality of stuff as you see before you in this post - a little bit of hard work is all that's needed.

Thanks again for reading and I'm always looking out for interesting stuff written by other people to put in my blog.

Martin