{"id":1701,"date":"2015-05-05T22:04:26","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T05:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/?p=1701"},"modified":"2015-05-06T00:27:04","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T07:27:04","slug":"chasing-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/chasing-happiness\/","title":{"rendered":"chasing happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went to a student talk about\u00a0finding happiness and fulfillment the other day. He introduced himself as a motivational coach, bouncing around the stage, projecting his voice and striking the same power poses I saw in that TED talk about the importance of body language. He was a smiley guy.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0like to think of myself as a smiley guy, too, so I was curious if we shared similar perspectives on life. I found him afterwards and\u00a0asked: “so what do you do when you’re sad?”\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I ask this because when you’re known as a smiley person, sometimes people (usually acquaintances) will begin to question your motives, your sanity, and your place in your life. They’ll make comments like:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You must not have any problems in life. [creating distance; “you don’t have it rough like I\u00a0do”]<\/li>\n
  2. You must be on drugs. [creating distance; you’re not normal]<\/li>\n
  3. You’re like a cartoon character. [creating distance; you’re not human]<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    After a while it starts to hurt. I have other thoughts and feelings, too! I wondered if he felt the same kind of disconnect at times.<\/p>\n

    “No man, you just gotta stay positive, day after day. You gotta make it a habit until it becomes a part of you”. It was just the two of us speaking, but he still kept the stage persona. The conversation didn’t go further than that, and I walked away feeling frustrated.<\/p>\n

    I’m all for healthy habits, but there’s also the point where you have to acknowledge other emotions, too. What about loneliness? Disappointment? Envy? Anger?<\/p>\n

    Know the scope of those “negative” emotions\u00a0and you will find new ways to relate and connect with the people you care about. That’s where true emotional depth and\u00a0fulfillment comes from.<\/p>\n

    But hey, maybe he knows something I don’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I went to a student talk about\u00a0finding happiness and fulfillment the other day. He introduced himself as a motivational coach, bouncing around the stage, projecting his voice and striking the same power poses I saw in that TED talk about the importance of body language. He was a smiley guy. I\u00a0like to think of myself … Continue reading “chasing happiness”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,22,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-misc","category-self-improvement"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3MSpn-rr","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1701"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1852,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions\/1852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}