Hello again, welcome back to the Laughing Matters podcast.
I am your host as always, WS Walker, and we're going to be getting into it today.
Yeah, no, we were supposed to have a special guest on today, but they are sick.
So we're going to try for it next week.
So the next episode after this should be one with somebody else on it.
Yeah, I just kind of wanted to get this out there.
So I figured I'd do an episode.
I know you guys have heard me talk about this plenty, but that happiness for self is most
easily and thoroughly achieved by working towards the happiness of others.
And I've told the story on the show at least once that this girl that I was dating, Casey,
she caught me because I always kind of said, no, no, no, thank you though.
You know, when people are offering me stuff or to help out with something, I'm like, oh,
no, no, no, thank you.
I appreciate it.
And she basically cornered me about it.
She said, look, you tell everybody that the best way to have real genuine happiness is
to be kind to others, be generous with others, and give them your time, your attention and
help them when they need help.
But at the same time, you know, you're saying that this is the way to real happiness.
And then you turn around and in the same breath, when somebody offers you something, aka doing
exactly what you told them to do, whether or not you told them to do it, what you're
telling people to do, they're doing what you specifically said to do.
And you're saying no.
And so I was looking at once again, why is it so hard for me to just accept the kindness
without protesting?
Because it is something that I'm working on something that I am doing now.
And it's made all the difference.
At first, you know, I thought it was a nobility thing, like a noble thing that that I should
not take advantage, that I would prefer that they have more of whatever it is that they're
offering rather than give it to me.
And to that end, also, there may be some degree of it that was my perceived self worth.
And this is this wasn't entirely news to me.
I pretty much thought of as much to be the case as well.
But the other night, I had a very, very hard realization that I think a big part of the
motivation to turn away offerings of kindness or help with a problem that I didn't ask for
help with.
I think it comes from an aversion to saying thank you.
I know it's strange.
It feels like there's this part of me, this part of my mind that wants to stay hidden
and put the blame for why I'm like this.
Wants to keep that hidden too.
You know, it wants to put the blame off on other things, but it wants to keep like the
real reason secret almost.
But I can see it pretty clearly right now.
It is kind of a pride thing, but definitely not like in a good way, not like that good
kind of pride.
Now for me, and probably a lot of you out there, there's been a lot of times that I've
been humbled in my life and so my instincts root for me to swing wide of situations in
which I know that I will be humbled.
As most humbling situations of the past, well, they aren't typically situations one might
call a good time.
Then simply saying thank you is kind of humbling to the prideful.
To say thank you without putting up some kind of a fight is to show a very open vulnerability.
And by rejecting the gift, by saying no, no, no, no, the strategist and engineer in me
is making the bold play of eliminating the situation so that there is nothing to think
in the first place.
Efficient, right?
Nipper in the bud.
I mean, seriously though, think about it, the phrase most commonly used to turn down
an offer like that.
What is it?
It's no thanks.
No thanks.
You know, there is no thanks going to be had here.
Or no thank you, which is basically saying there will be no thank you delivered unto
you.
There will be no thanks.
I might have to start tacking on a little something on the end of those.
Like if I do use no thank you, like so that I remember in the moment what it is that I'm
really doing.
It's just, they, they offer me a water bottle.
I'm just like, Oh, no thanks for you.
Yeah.
No thanks for you today, pal.
Better luck next time.
Gonna have to kick your genhap fix somewhere else.
Buckaroo.
Go find yourself another sucker.
Huh?
You get no thanks.
Hope you ain't running on empty cause you about to have to pull off onto the highway
shoulder.
I even about to offer the fumes to Costa station on.
Slap the bottle of water out of their hands.
Not today, sister.
Sorry.
I got a little kill you the way there.
Okay.
See, you gotta remember.
I need to remember that it's not a weakness to accept something kind from someone else.
It is in fact helping someone else during their honest attempt at happiness for the
both of us.
The person giving them the person receiving and me rejecting their generosity will not
give them that happiness and putting up a fight dims it.
Just say thank you.
I'm telling myself this too, but also do you just say thank you and maybe throw in a meaningful
hug if it's appropriate.
Showing me it may happen even if it's not appropriate.
I'm a hugger.
And then doing that, I help their happiness.
The real stuff that comes from working towards somebody else's happiness.
And for today, in that moment, that someone else is me.
The happiness of another is talking about my happiness.
In this instance, they did something nice for someone else slash me.
Or they put in the effort and attention to help someone else slash me and they will get
some kind of genuine happiness from that.
And I did something that helped them to happiness by consciously and actively keeping myself
from putting up a fight.
And believe me that that takes a decision for me to act against my own instincts.
It sounds a little weird to say it this way, but doing so is an act of courage.
It's doing the right thing that you know to be the right thing, even though most of you
wants to do something else.
I'd say that qualifies.
So theoretically doing something at least semi courageous.
Wouldn't I also get a little bit of happiness from helping them to theirs?
I'm not getting greedy here or anything.
I'm not going to be approaching these situations and haven't been approaching these situations
with that motivation.
Only the motivation to help them to their happiness because I want for their happiness.
Seriously folks, you want to build that in through repetition until it's instinctual.
You want to have it so that the option to makes my state better to work towards some
of these happiness in any decision making process.
You want that to populate as an attractive option automatically.
And the happiness that you get from helping them to theirs by suppressing that fight back
instinct in addition to the happiness you get from someone expressing their fondness
of you is just brilliantly designed by product that happens to benefit you and I as well.
And isn't it crazy how those link like how those are interlinked and I'm just I'm sorry,
I'm absolutely still fascinated at every turn by how fantastically intricate and interwoven
and complex all these systems surround us and penetrate us.
And yet how masterfully elegant is the design's efficiency.
Okay so now is not the time on sprockets where we dance, but it is the time of the podcast
when I will turn to you, dear firsters and seconders and ask you to ask yourself, why
is it that you're so reluctant to just say thank you, you individually, why?
How many of us just default to that?
Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.
When handed a gift of or kindness by someone else.
I'm sorry, I almost did that as Antonio Bandera's.
This is no, no, no, no, no.
I digress.
Please ask yourself genuinely and then pause the podcast.
Why would you protest this kindness?
Really ask yourself so that you can understand why a change in that is worth it.
Identify it, deal with it and stop standing in the way of another's happiness or your
own for that matter.
They get that genuine happiness, you get a gift or kindness and that genuine happiness.
It's win, win, win, win, win, win.
It is happen ease, happen ease.
It's happen ease.
Oh my God.
It's happen ease.
How have I never mispronounced happiness as happen ease before?
Oh, wow, I'm going to do that more often just for fun.
Nobody it's happiness in your household or as as the French say it, happiness in your
household.
Or maybe don't say it that way that I, you know, I heard it that time.
But what you can say is that the clearest and most concise way to happiness for self
is through the pursuit of happiness for another.
But a real bonus perk of that pursuit is that people like to visit kindness upon those that
exhibit kindness.
And how thick is the love and happiness you get from someone you care about showing that
they care about you and, you know, doing something really nice for you.
How warm and gooey and stick to your ribs is that palpable happiness from that.
And you know, I think that at the end of the day, one of the fundamental things that I've
had get in my way of me praying for help is along the same thing.
I've made worse with prayer because I'm not just taking the help or the gift.
I'm specifically asking for it.
But how strange it is after looking at these motivations here with gift giving or gift
receiving rather, and to look at point blank in the face and say that I am worried about
putting out our creator of the universe and the one that loves me more than any other
person could.
That I don't want to bother the one that literally made all of us, even though he explicitly
asked us to do this.
To worry about showing my vulnerability to God or to think that the one with the capacity
for anything would have less for helping me.
If the pattern of the heartbeat scale is indicative of other patterns that almost act like fractals,
which is to say that the same pattern repeats as you move toward a narrower zoomed in or
wider zoomed out viewpoint.
I know that's not super clear.
So if anybody has trouble following that, think of four triangles arranged in a way
that these four triangles make up one large triangle.
Can you picture that?
Picture two side by side, then a line that connects their tops that forms an upside down
triangle for the third one, and then put one triangle on top of that.
So imagine that, and then we zoom out a little bit and we see that big triangle it made is
one of four triangles that's making up a much larger triangle.
If we zoom out, we find out that's one of four.
The same thing happens when we zoom in on a triangle, we see that it's made up of four
triangles and then we zoom in on one of those triangles that's made up of four triangles
and it just kind of goes on forever.
So that's if you've never seen that go to youtube.com slash could help and watch the
heartbeats episode because it poses some very interesting thoughts along that would that
fit in with all of this very nicely.
I'll put the link in the description of this episode at any rate, perhaps the one that
made us and that we are made of is affected in a similar way when it helps someone towards
their happiness.
Maybe that's one more way that we're built in the form of our creator.
I have to say I really like the idea that we can provide that kind of happiness as a
gift of sorts to the very one that makes all this possible.
And we do it by taking a moment to not only allow ourselves to be helped, but to ask for
it.
To be able to give genuine happiness to the one which we owe our entire existence and
every good thing that's ever happened to us.
I'll tell you that that sits pretty good with me.
So in a slight change of phrase, be good to him, be good for him and you're going to be
fantastic.
I'm WS Walker.
You're the fantastic you.
Be sweet.