Happy, Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

“My cup runneth over”

Every week for around 6 months now, this phrase has been running through my head at some point of the day. The world is an interesting and big place with a lot of potential, and many streams of thoughts.

Some years ago I had a “reading” with Carrie Hart and she told me that I have a gift — that of feeling joy no matter the circumstances.

Well, this surprised me and I thought to myself “Well yes when I was younger, I did feel a deep joy or happiness all the time, but that was then and this is now.”

I have explored the meaning of joy and happiness, and I believe that it doesn’t necessarily mean over-flowing happiness, like number 10 on a scale from 1 to 10 where 1 denotes feeling totally miserable. Being happy starts with being satisfied. Positive satisfaction with what is happening personally in ones life is a big contributing factor, I have found.

Joy to me encompasses refining your coping strategies as well as being in happy personal circumstances. But the human being’s thoughts and attitude toward life can be fickle or arbitrary, as I would like to demonstrate from my personal experiences.

Starting around 2015 events at my workplace become increasingly stressful for me. There were very real unpleasant attitudes toward the work unit that I was a part of.

For example, the executive services did not really want to understand or grasp the idea of records management, which I was a part of, and began stripping resources from it. Not only that, but I was personally chided for not registering some letters to the correct files, although as I told my Manager back then, the reason was that I was feeling quite ill that day but had soldiered on, to try to do my best.

Sadly, many people were quick to point out the flaws and mistakes of our team, but never gave us thanks let alone encouragement or praise.

This was very real, but then the un-real began. As you may know, when you are part of a work team, there may be alliances and distances among certain people, and there are many different personalities.

There was one lady whom worked part-time and had enormous personal and medical issues, who would talk about her other job at the hospital and her personal life for up to 30 minutes at a time, interrupting our work, sort of like a bull-dog not letting go of a bone, with tenaciousness that even I had to admire.

My other colleague and I discreetly mentioned that we had work to do or at times even had to walk away, but the strength of our reactions were not enough. She continued to chat and to complain also.

It was un-realistic of me to accept her barrage of torment, for she claimed that she was the hardest done by, and she was very sensitive and mis-read every little thing as a personal attack upon her.

In hindsight I should have said to her “Can you please stop talking so much.” Bluntness even if I thought it would offend her, would probably have worked. Here is where wisdom would have helped.

Then the other person whom I worked with began complaining also, because she had suddenly lost her Higher Duties Allowance and been dropped to her substantive lower level. Here is when I had a choice not to get dragged into the drama, by not bolstering up this person’s grievances by agreeing with her and starting complaints of my own.

Now I am not saying that it is easy to respond the way you think in hindsight that you should, however at that time I was aware that my complaining was shoring up her state of mind, but that it was wrong, in terms of I knew that it would just be feeding the embers.

Sadly I chose to complain and I soon got into a “funk” or into the weird state of feeling comfort or some small satisfaction from blaming the other. I chose to feel sorry for myself and for her and to see them against us, in a fairly arbitrary manner.

Well the next stage for me was to start losing my own sense of who I was, by revolving my work life around this person. Because of not seeing the positives that both my work colleagues and I wanted, and not accepting reality, my happiness was extremely low.

I became more and more depressed, and in early 2017 I felt like “throwing in the towel”, and part of that story can be read at the link below. I did not realise then that I was investing far too much time on worrying about others and being pessimistic, which curtailed being “happy, healthy, wealthy and wise.”

Life has a way of giving you a proverbial “kick in the pants” and In January 2019, I was forced to stop over-helping others, and to take care of myself. Lesson learned as the Story below tells.

To be happy, I have to be healthy, to be wealthy (in all areas of life) I have to be happy and healthy (to be able and motivated) and to be wise, I need to be happy and healthy, and wealthy (in terms of an abundance of positive experiences and support).

Time marches on, and eventually, after my 2 work colleagues and I merged with a new and larger team, we adjusted to our new conditions and during this time, I slowly began to recover my joy de vivre (joy of life).

This I achieved through accepting my own personal conditions and reflecting upon my interactions with others, and building upon my learning experiences.

Life served me some hard and serious lessons, like when I judge someone else, it is more about me and my values, attitude, and mind set; and to not feel guilty over another person’s troubles but give them support while respecting my own boundaries.

I feel that I am the phoenix rising from the ashes

I am enjoying being myself, and work is a lot better now as I have a lot of autonomy in how I carry out the tasks charged to me, and those who used to tell me off are now leaving me alone. Even the executive services is now showing direct appreciation of me, because our circumstances changed to stimulate this (we merged with other Departments but there are still “cliques” within the new organization) and they want to foster relationships with people they already know from their “old” Department, with includes me.

I have had to learn to accept any positive change for me personally, no matter its genesis. I have had to learn not to go into in-depth analysis about most things, pointing my finger at what he or she should have done or could have done, tinged and fueled somewhat by resentment and sorriness for myself.

Every night when you go to bed you could say to yourself “Happy, healthy, wealthy and wise” to put yourself into a positive framework.

Yes, some of us have had traumatic childhoods and earlier years, and then some, i.e. even more challenges later as adults, but the point is to keep reflecting upon yourself, and to keep learning and getting help, all heading toward that joy de vivre, the moments of gladness and deep happiness at being alive, and being supported by so many sources, with infinite potential around you.

If you do the inner work upon yourself, one day you will be feeling to yourself that “my cup runneth over” and this deep appreciation of Life will give you a feeling of deep satisfaction and maybe joy.

Even if just in the moment, enter into that feeling and embrace it as what you want. Nurture it and let it blossom as a daily part of your life.