Do You Deserve to Be Happy? [Updated]

I was talking with a friend this evening and we both sense that a lot of people, maybe most people, don't believe they deserve to be happy.

So, do you think you believe to be happy? Honestly, deep down, do you own the right to be happy? If not, why?

I lived much of my life with the belief that I was such a horrible person that I didn't deserve to be happy. I'm not sure when that shifted, but I suspect that it was a combination of my Buddhist practice and time in therapy. At some point I realized that no matter how many bad things I have done -- and the number is staggering -- that I can make amends for those things and in doing so, reclaim my right to be happy.

[My good friend Jami, who is a therapist, pointed out to me that there is a contradiction in this post. We do not need to earn the right to be happy. My thinking that I did is contrary to my belief that we all deserve to be happy.

She says:

Who says you have to make amends to reclaim your right to be happy? THIS is the point I try to get across every day. We are so wrapped up in doing that we aren't being. Your belief that you have to DO something to reclaim this right does not acknowledge your spirit, that inherently you are a good person -- your actions aren't your totality -- and just because you are here you deserve to be happy. SO, there can be all these philosophical questions about serial killers want to kill to be happy, but I am not talking about these people. You have the right to be, and hence be happy, in that just because you are.

Point taken.]

I'm sure there is no law that says I should be happy, but I believe that all human beings have an innate right to be happy. Somehow, many of us become convinced that we are undeserving of this basic human right -- and certainly some of this comes from religion. No matter where we reside now in our spiritual beliefs, most of us grew up with some version of the Christian belief in original sin, that we were born flawed because of some mythic story about the origins of human life.

Yet our culture tells us in so many ways that we should be happy -- but the ways that we should do this are very detrimental to our emotional and spiritual health, i.e., owning things and seeking fleeting experiences.

So, I ask again -- Do you deserve to be happy? If not, why?

Tags: Do You Deserve to Be Happy?, happiness, personal growth, self exploration