People Who Are Genuinely Happy In Life Never Assume These 4 Things
They key to happiness is to never make assumptions.
Jose P Ortiz | Unsplash Do you despair that you will ever get your happily ever after with the man of your dreams? Have you been looking everywhere for your happiness, but has every person let you down, over and over? Are you ready to give up?
Let me tell you that it is possible to get your happily ever after by accepting that it is never going to be like what you see in movies or on TV. Does that mean that you need to settle? That you won’t ever get the romance that you long for? That you must accept whatever comes along, or make do with what is in front of you?
Absolutely not. It means that if you can add a little dose of reality to your dream of finding happiness and stop making assumptions, you will be way more likely to be able to find and keep, the love you seek.
People who are genuinely happy in life never assume these 4 things:
1. That life will turn out perfectly
Think about every rom-com that you have ever seen. Think Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Ryan Reynolds.
The characters that they play are the most perfect guys in the world. They are handsome, smart, and emotionally intelligent. They know how to say the right things and be there when we need them.
They have just the right amount of money, have a cool job, have a perfect family, and maybe even an adorable kid. They, and they alone, can give the protagonist the happily ever after they have always wanted.
But they, I am afraid, are characters created by writers — the ideal of what every woman wants. I am afraid that the rom-coms on which we have based everything we believe a relationship should be are exactly the things that hold us back from finding a good one.
Why? Because life isn't perfect. Sure, many guys are as handsome as any movie star, but they might also be guys who say the wrong things, or who don’t have very high emotional intelligence. They might be guys who are struggling with their jobs or who have a fraught relationship with their families.
But they also might be guys who are working hard to get ahead at work, who volunteer at food shelters, who know that they don’t always say the right thing, but are working on it. And those imperfect guys are exactly the guys you want!
So, if your life isn’t perfect, that is okay. It’s important that you love yourself, warts and all. Don’t walk away because your person won’t meet you on the top of the Empire State Building with his adorable kid in tow.
2. That everyone has good intentions
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I can’t tell you how many of my clients come to me because they are struggling with their partner, and a big part of that struggle is because they come from such different backgrounds.
One of my clients had a boyfriend who was raised in a super religious, off-the-grid kind of family. Nothing at all like her middle-class, subdivision upbringing. She just doesn’t understand why he does the things he does, and neither does he.
For another client, her boyfriend grew up in an orphanage in the inner city. He had made it out and is very successful but he has a hard time being ok with the fancy trips her family takes every Christmas.
It can be very hard for people from different backgrounds, different levels of education, and different political or religious beliefs, to build a life together. Each person is the way they are because of their background, and if those things are not compatible, it can be hard work to meet somewhere where both are comfortable.
This can be a huge issue, especially once children come along. Now, I am not saying that this can’t happen. Every day, people who are very different make their relationship work. But they have to dig deep and be willing to work together to do so, to do things differently and to accept differences.
So, if you want to get your happily ever after, be aware that, sometimes, while getting the bad boy from the other side of the tracks might be very romantic, as time goes on, you could find that that exact thing is what drives you apart.
While some research indicates the positive impact of kindness, such as increased happiness and social connection, it's crucial to acknowledge the potential downsides of assuming kindness in all situations. A balanced approach that involves recognizing individual differences in personality and being aware of the possibility of manipulative or deceptive behaviors is likely more beneficial for navigating social interactions effectively.
3. That you'll get closure
Movies last about 2 hours, usually. And, over that two hours, two people meet, fall in love, struggle with an issue, and then resolve it and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, in real life, it doesn’t work that way.
Couples have issues. Sometimes issues can be resolved quickly, but others take time. And, both people in the relationship need to be willing to do the work to resolve them.
Unfortunately, while this is easily done in the movies, not so much in real life. Why? Because, unlike characters written for movies, many people just don’t have the skills that are important for working through issues.
And, even worse, sometimes people do have those skills, but they don’t match up with their partners, and doing the work to resolve the issue can be impossible. There is one particular thing that I hear my clients believe they need to do, something that I always see in movies and, when I do, I always yell at the screen. Take the time to talk it through
It happens when a couple is having a disagreement and one person makes a statement, something somewhat profound, and then they turn and walk away, leaving their partner unable to say anything, left to consider what their partner has just said.
This makes me crazy. For couples to work through issues, they must talk about them. No storming away, hoping that your person will follow you (like you see in the movies). No issuing ultimatums, hoping that your person will just love you enough to change (like you see in the movies).
Resolutions are messy. They are fraught with emotions. They are sometimes unattainable.
If you can accept that any issues that arise might not resolve quickly, that you are two different people with two different perspectives and that you might want different things, that things don’t resolve easily as they do in the movies, then you just might get your happily ever after because you won’t be let down every time an issue doesn’t get resolved right away.
4. That love conquers all
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This is the one that breaks my heart the most — having to break it to my clients that love doesn’t conquer all.
Why, oh why, can’t they just be together? They love each other very much, but the relationship just isn’t working. Won't their love ultimately prevail? Sadly, usually, no.
Again, people are only human. They bring their eccentricities to every relationship. They have different levels of emotional intelligence. They have jobs that are stressful and difficult family relationships.
And, no matter how hard a couple tries to make it, sometimes some things just can’t be overcome. Take nothing for granted — ever.
One of my clients had just broken up with her boyfriend of six years. She tried so hard to make it work, but they were just too different. She was silly and spontaneous; he was more serious and sedentary. She tried to twist herself into a pretzel to make things work, but it just didn’t.
She broke up with him, primarily because their personalities just didn’t match. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, but that love wasn’t enough to make her happy or keep the relationship afloat.
Again, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes the love is enough to find success working through the issues. Love opens people up to do the work that they need to do to find their way back to each other.
But it doesn’t always. And accepting that sometimes things just don’t work and that you must move on is the best way to find the love that you are seeking.
The idea that 'love conquers all' is a powerful and romantic notion, but it can create unrealistic expectations and even be detrimental to relationships, according to research. Healthy relationships require effort, communication, compromise, and a willingness to work through difficulties together.
Mitzi Bockmann is a NYC-based Certified Life Coach who works with individuals who strive to heal their toxic relationships so they can have their happily ever after. Mitzi's bylines have appeared in The Good Men Project, MSN, PopSugar, Prevention, Huffington Post, Psych Central, among many others.
