The First Key to Happiness

We are all searching for happiness. I mean, who doesn’t want to be happy? It’s all anyone wants. But how can we find it?

‘We will never experience happiness if we always focus on what we don’t have and give into this need of wanting more. Not the happiness we’re looking for anyway. Yes we can buy a temporary version of it, but it never lasts long. I’m not talking about that kind of happiness. I’m talking about something deeper. I’m talking about a happiness that brings contentment, purpose and a joy that does last. That is what we really desire. And I believe it is attainable. What’s more, I believe I have it. The secrets to happiness. The key to unlocking those secrets was right in front of me the entire time, and the same is true for you. I believe the answer lies right underneath your nose. The key is this: The things that bring real joy aren’t the things we buy, but are in fact the things that are already freely given to us by someone who created us to enjoy them! It does not come in many forms, but in three:
1. Our relationships
2. …
3. …
‘The Secrets to Happiness’
https://tiffanyjade.blog/2019/02/22/the-secrets-to-happiness/

For some reason, we are under the illusion that we don’t have everything we need to be happy, so we go looking for it. We get stuck in the past, wishing we could go back or we look to the future, impatient for the “next best thing” instead of being ‘present in the moment.’ We look around at what everyone else has rather than what we already have ourselves. We look at what we don’t have instead of what we already do have, trying to buy happiness. We look anywhere but right in front of us. And this translates into our relationships. And when I say relationships, I am not just referring to romantic ones. I am referring to all kinds of relationships. Friends, family, work colleagues… the whole lot!

One of the most successful TV shows has to be F.R.I.E.N.D.S. I know so many people who watch repeats over and over and still aren’t bored of it. The writing is absolutely genius and it is such a funny, feel good show. It’s a feel good show because they are living the ideal life. Everyone wants what they have. Everyone wants a tight group of friends that are there for them through the good times and the bad. That’s all anyone wants. People to hang out with every day and do life together! People who make us laugh and comfort us when we need them. People who know everything about us – warts and all – and still love us more than anything else in the world. It’s what we long for.

We dream about the relationships we haven’t got yet. The kind of relationships we wish for, the people we will eventually meet one day. We reminisce about past relationships, people we miss but will probably never see again. We seethe with jealousy when we look at other people’s relationships and see how much they all get on with each other. How they always look like they’re having the best time together and care about each other so much. We genuinely believe that they have a better relationship with their friends/partner/family than we have with ours. But it’s time to start calling these beliefs what they really are…

Lies.

It is a lie that we have to wait for the best relationships.
It is a lie that the best relationships we will ever have are in the past.
It is a lie that we have absolutely no one in our lives that will ever care about us.
And the most convincing one, it is a lie that everyone’s relationships are better than yours. This is the one that has fooled people the most. The vast majority of us compare our lives and our relationships with others, and believe what they have is better.

‘Comparison is the thief of joy’
Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt could not have said it more clearly even if he tried. I even named one of my blogs with this saying https://tiffanyjade.blog/2018/10/13/friends-part-3/ Comparison does exactly this! It robs us from experiencing real joy. Instagram is terrible for it! It has become a place where people compare their lowlights against everyone else’s highlights. We see all these beautifully edited pictures of different people having fun with their partner/friends/family and it all seems so unattainable. They all look so happy and so close and as we reflect on our own lives, we believe that we don’t have that. When we start to compare we are suggesting that they have something better than us. People don’t care about us that way. Our friends aren’t as cool as them. Our partner isn’t as thoughtful or affectionate as theirs.
This very popular lie is quite literally stealing our joy. It is blinding us from seeing the blessings all around us. It is – unbeknown to us – slowly turning us into an ungrateful generation, and ungrateful people are never happy. It is ungratefulness that causes us to hurt and replace people we know. I would even dare to say it is ungratefulness that causes people to cheat. It is ungratefulness that brings out the worst in us. It is ungratefulness that causes us to hate our lives. And if we continue to look at what everyone else has and be envious of it, I fear that we will never be happy.

The Better Spade
I used to work in a nursery and I remember one day I was playing in the sand with a little girl. We both had a spade and bucket each and I was scooping up the sand into the bucket. The little girl sat and watched me for a while before holding out her own spade towards me. She wanted to trade, so I swapped mine for hers. She took it happily and started to dig, so I continued to scoop the sand into the bucket. After a while though, I noticed she has stopped and was watching me again. Once again, she held out her spade towards me so we could trade. This happened repeatedly again and again. She was convinced that I was using the better spade. We both had exactly the same resources. We both had the same kind of spade. Mine wasn’t shiny or bigger or special in any way. The only difference was that I was focussing on what I had and she wasn’t. She was too busy looking at me. In her mind, she was convinced that I had something better than her and she wanted it. But I didn’t. I just knew how to enjoy it. (As much as an adult can enjoy using a bucket and spade.)
What’s more, even when I did give her what I had and took what she had, she was still convinced that I had something better. The reason I’ve shared this little story is because I think this is what we do with relationships. But here is the truth in black and white.

Other people’s relationships aren’t better than yours. The grass isn’t greener on the other side. It is greener where you water it. People who seem to have better relationships than you don’t actually have better relationships than you. They have just learnt how to enjoy them.

This right here is the first key to happiness.
To know that the people who can give us what we’re looking for are already in our lives. They’re not lost in our past, and they’re not waiting for us in our future. They are here now. We have ALL been given amazing people. They are blessings that we never had to look for. Gifts that we never had to buy. They are people who are already freely given to us. Happiness just comes from knowing what we’ve already got and be thankful for it. We simply need to open our eyes and see them. Then we need to put the work in. Once we understand that we already have what we are looking for, the next step is to put in the effort. People make time for people they trust and people trust people who care about them. So the effort we are putting in is showing them bit by bit that we care about them. That they mean something to us and we are there for them. That we are trustworthy. The kind of relationships we’re looking for take time and care. If we are willing to do that, then we can ALL have the relationships we desire. I honestly believe that positive relationships do have the power to bring deep joy, real happiness and life to the full. They are worth every bit of effort. To care for someone and have someone care for you is everything. This is why I genuinely believe it is so important to teach our children to be thankful. When we teach our children to be thankful, we teach them so much more than just manners. We show them how to be happy!

How to make your side greener
In my blog, ‘Friends. How to keep them,’ I talk about how laziness is a killer!
If you want some practical ideas on how to tackle laziness head on then give it a read. https://tiffanyjade.blog/2018/06/24/friends/
I am a big believer in extravagant love. Going out of your way for people. I’ve not mastered it, but it’s what I strive to do`. I want to forgive always. Be there to help practically or financially. I want to surprise my friends with a random gift or surprise, just because I love them. I want everything I say to be good and encouraging so it builds people up rather than tears them down. I want to help people realise how amazing they really are and reach their potential. I want to be affectionate, loving and give all the time I can. I want to give my full attention when I’m with people and not be staring at my phone. I want to always be fun and bring joy to people’s lives. Be there to celebrate when things are going well for them. Never jealous of them, but instead be their biggest supporter. I want to always be there when poo hits the fan. I’m aware that sometimes people don’t need me to fix their problems, they just need someone who won’t judge them. Someone who will simply listen. I want to be thankful for my husband, my family and my friends. I want them to know they are appreciated and loved more than they could ever know.

I’ll be honest, I am a million miles away from being all of these things. There are times when I do start comparing and there are days when I wish I had “what other people have.” And it is those days where I am unhappy with my life. Why? Because I become ungrateful. But on the days where I am thankful – and that is becoming the majority of the time now thanks to Jesus helping me train my brain to think differently – I am blissfully happy for my life and everything in it because I am aware I already have what “everyone else has.” Even when I’ve gone through tricky situations, life has still been amazing because I know what I have vastly outweighs the rubbish. Like I said, I am a million miles away from being everything I want to be, but even making these small changes has made a massive impact in my life.

I used to feel like I didn’t have many good friends and that people didn’t care about me. But if I was to be brutally honest, I didn’t put an awful lot of time into them either and always daydreamed about having “better friends.” (Whatever they are?) I got out what I put in. But over the last couple of years where myself and my husband have made “making time for people” a priority, people have changed towards us. We have friends and family who would do anything for us and look forward to seeing us. They put as much into us as we put into them. Long distance hasn’t been an issue with our ‘Long distance’ friends. We are just as close to them… in fact we have grown with them more than ever. Even when I have screwed up royally, our relationships have been strong enough to withstand it. And why? Because we are thankful for those people in our lives and they know it!
I live my life surrounded by people that I love who love me in return, and nothing has brought me more joy than that. And not because life has been a smooth ride. I’m not saying that, because it certainly hasn’t. Even over the past year, I have experienced things that almost floored me. But through it all, I have had people in my corner, loving and supporting me and that has filled me with joy. That is the happiness I am talking about. Not the feeling that is affected by circumstance, but a thankfulness and joy inside that lasts despite circumstance. Because like I said before, I know what I have vastly outweighs all the rubbish. I don’t believe that the people in my life are better than the people in anyone else’s lives. I am simply thankful and because of that, I am happy.

It’s Time for the Deep End!

So it’s the New Year. 2019. A fresh slate. An opportunity for anything to happen!
A lot of us might have set some New Year’s resolutions – some of us might have already given up on those New Year’s Resolutions. Some people haven’t come up with any at all because they don’t see the point. I personally LOVE setting New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t see it as a sure way to fail, but an opportunity to get better. And you have 12 months to try! You can try something you’ve always wanted to learn, put yourself out there, see people more often.

Maybe one of your resolutions this year is to try something new? Or go back to something you haven’t done in years? A hobby? A talent?

I love finding out what people are good at. That thing they know about and enjoy talking about because they love it. You hear all kinds of answers. Photography. Singing. Drawing. Guitar. Sewing. Football. Karate. It just makes conversation so much more interesting than the usual small talk starters. You know, “What do you do?” “Guess how old I am.” And it’s more interesting because they’re talking about something they care about. Next thing I ask is, “Are you doing it?” People tend to be quite thrown by that question. Because a lot of the time, the answer is no.

If you had asked me what I loved doing, I would of said dancing, singing and writing. Those were my three. I loved to dance when I was younger. I danced all the time, anywhere and everywhere, getting involved in anything that I could. But if you asked me if I was dancing now, my answer would have been no. And the reason for this is quite simple. I cared too much about what people thought.

I don’t think I’m alone in that. How many of us won’t do something because there are too many people around? How many of us are scared about what other people might think? The thing about our talents is that they are a little part of who we are. They are precious to us because not only are we good at them, we enjoy them. So if anyone were to reject our talents, they would be rejecting us. We don’t want people to think that we are not good enough at our talents because that’s the thing we’re good at. So if people think we are not good at that, then what are we good at? And we tell ourselves, ‘nothing.’ So to prevent this, we take our talents, the things we’re good at, the things we enjoy, and we hide them away because we are afraid of the world’s opinion.

Dream vs. Reality
When I was younger, I loved it so much I decided I wanted to do it professionally for a job so I begged my parents to take me to dance college, which they did. But I learnt quickly that the picture I had had in my head of what it would be like, was in fact very, very different to the real thing.
In the real professional dance world, image is everything. It has to be. You have to be the best of the best if you want to get anywhere. If you’re not, you’re practically invisible. There’s no room for anything less than the best. On top of that, you have to look a certain way. You have to be beautiful. You have to be striking. You have to be different. I didn’t realise that when I stepped into this world as a sixteen year old girl. I was good at dancing and I loved it with all my heart, but so did the other students in my class. Students where the majority of them had been training at a high level from a very young age. Students who already had brilliant technique as I was learning it for the first time. Students who weren’t just good. They were brilliant. They were the best. Very quickly I found myself drowning and falling further and further behind. I tried so hard but they were better. But it wasn’t just skill alone where I was behind.

On top of that, one of the teachers from the dance school told me over the time I was there that I didn’t know how to do my hair or my make- up and my bum was too big. She said I was a wallflower. That I was currently unnoticeable. It was her way of trying to improve me and help me. To make me do something about it so I would be better and haver a better chance in this profession obsessed with image. But as a sixteen year old girl who already didn’t have a very high opinion of herself, it floored me. I remember one day someone gave me a makeover and as I walked out of the changing rooms, a boy in my class said to me, “You were one of the worst looking girls but now you look good.” I cared about what these people thought and hung onto every word that they said. As the year went on I felt more and more average looking, humiliated and invisible.

When we performed routines in front of each other, no one watched me. When it came to the end of year shows, no one chose me for their choreography. I was hardly involved in anything. I began to believe I wasn’t good at dancing. I noticed the others improve and exceed and grow in confidence, and watched as mine shrivelled up before my eyes. I completed the course two years later and I gained a qualification, but I lost my love for dance.
I decided to put dance on the shelf and do something completely different with my life. That’s what took me to Manchester. I lived with my friends Jacquie and Steve for a bit and ended up telling Jacquie about my dancing. After that, she would bring it up every now and then for years after I told her, encouraging me to try again. Not for a profession, but in church or for fun. And for years I would half -heartedly agree with absolutely no intention of doing it. I just didn’t dance anymore. No biggy. I also loved writing when I was younger. Did it all the time until I got older and got too busy. Guess what? Didn’t do that either. I buried both of them in the ground because to me, it was safer there. Safer to hide. No one could bad mouth them there.

7 years later…
That was 7 years ago, and in that time I got closer to God by spending time with him and learned more about who He is and how much he loved me. I gradually got my confidence and my identity back to the point where I am incredibly secure in who I am. I know who I am. But God started to pull me up on dance, reminding me that I loved it and that it was something that he’d given to me for me. I had been putting off dance because of people’s opinions. That people would see me and think I wasn’t good enough. But they were only opinions! And opinions are different. They’re subjective. They change. They are up and down. People are for you and then they’re against you. Whereas I had been learning that God’s opinion of me never changed, no matter what I did. He speaks truth. He always loved me, he is always there as my biggest supporter and he’d made me to dance. It didn’t matter what people thought, it only mattered what he thought. So eventually I decided to try a dance class as a 25 year old.

The Deep End
It was hilarious actually. I thought I’d go easy on myself and start with the beginners class so I went with my two friends from church. But when we got there the beginners class had been cancelled for that week alone. In its place was an advanced street class full of very gangster street dancers who had been doing it since they were in the womb, and that class was in a front studio which had a wall of glass so everyone outside could see in. We freaked out but thought we’d driven all that way so we might as well give it a go. I said a little prayer to God. Something probably along the lines of, “HELP ME!” It was completely out of my comfort zone and at first I felt all my old fears creeping up. But then something different happened. Before I would look at those dancers and think, “I’m not as good as that. I look really stupid. I might as well give up now.” But this time I found myself thinking, “I want to be as good as them. If I give up, how can I do that? But if I give it a go, and give it my everything, I will get there. It’s not about skill. It’s about willingness.”

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Do you know the people in this world who have excelled in their talents are the people who took risks and went for it even when there was a chance they could fail? I realised then that it didn’t matter what people thought. It didn’t matter if they were better or worse than me. It didn’t matter if I made mistakes and got it wrong. What mattered was my willingness to try and get better. What mattered was being myself and doing what I loved because I loved it. What happened if I failed? I just got back up again. You live and learn.
Going back to dance was the best thing I ever did that year! I have loved every single class and it’s brought so much joy back to my life! It even helped me take more risks with singing and start writing again . And guess what, all my friends and family have been completely behind me anyway. My friend Jacquie was practically in tears that God had freed me and I was finally doing what I loved again. They’re not why I did it, but it’s been amazing to have people so happy for me.
Life is about jumping into the deep end, taking a risk and – if you believe he exists – trusting God. Because when we fully step out and make ourselves vulnerable, there is an opportunity for us to grow in ways we never thought possible and learn more than we ever could of if we had just played it safe. You gain so much more than you loose. It’s freeing! Life is so much more exciting and there are so many more experiences available to us.

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If you have something you love and want to do but aren’t doing it because of what others might think… just do it! People in your life will probably be more behind you than you thought, but if not do it anyway! If this is your New Year’s Resolution, do it! If it’s not, do it anyway. No one can be you. All that matters is just going for it and doing what you love without the weight of other’s opinions. Get out of your comfort zone and be the best version of yourself. The deep end is where the adventure is. I hope 2019 is an exciting year for you! In fact, I hope it is the best year ever!