Women Need to Start Taking Ownership of Their Happiness

We are the reasons why we can’t be happy. 

Last week, I was talking to a good friend. Let’s call her Jessica. She recently got into a relationship with someone she’s been talking to for a while. She approached me with something that was bothering her that day — the guy had not text her all day and she wanted to know why. We went back and forth to figure out possible reasons why he had not reached out, all of which were rebutted with better reasons of why he should’ve texted anyways. Finally, I asked “Well…who was the last person to text?” He was.

She said she wanted to see if he would double text her if she didn’t talk to him all day. “Doesn’t he care about my day?” Well, don’t you want to know about his too?

See, this is the reason why women can’t be happy.

We overanalyze actions (or non-actions) that make us doubt not only our relationships, but ourselves included. We put up barriers that we want other people to climb over without ever telling them that “Hey, here’s a test. Please try to pass it.” We take good things and slather on layers of nonsense and complexity, just so that we can…what? Feel secure that the person we are with really likes us? No ladies, let’s not do this to ourselves anymore! Let’s stop following the tradition of passively letting the other sex always take the lead. If we want it, let’s go and make it happen.

We need to start taking ownership of our own happiness and well-being.

If you want to talk to your boyfriend, talk to your boyfriend. If you want that new job, go and get it. Or at least go and take those baby steps to eventually get there. Don’t wait for things to fall into place, and then wallow in sadness when things don’t go the way we want. Give the important things in your life everything you’ve got. You owe it to yourself.

And yes, it’s scary.

It’s so damn scary to put yourself out there. (And hey, we’re going to have our fail days and that’s okay.) But if you do it, you’ll come to realize that you’ll find a sense of comfort in those vulnerable moments. It’ll make you feel a little more alive, and you’ll feel as if you are in control of your own emotions. Because if you give something your 100% and it still doesn’t work out, then you know it really wasn’t meant to happen. You can move on from that. But imagine if you only put 70% of yourself out there and things don’t work out. You’re going to get stuck wondering whether things would have turned out differently if you had just given that remaining 30%.

I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s probably one of the hardest things to understand and wrap our minds around since it goes against what most girls are taught growing up (ex. gender roles, society stereotypes). But if we are going to be the generation of women that shakes up this world, I know we have it in us to take lead and give happiness our 100%. What do you think?