Wishing Happiness for Others While Wondering Who Wishes It for Me

by Jeanette R. Harrison

Today’s gratitude practice is about wishing happiness for three people. Honestly, this feels especially difficult right now because I am currently living in a hotel, and if I am being honest, I do not feel like many people genuinely care about my happiness, my well-being, or my emotional safety right now. In many ways, I do not feel like people have cared about those things for the past six years.

What I feel instead is that people expect me to perform happiness for them while keeping me emotionally at arm’s length. They want me to be positive, resilient, grateful, productive, inspiring, and emotionally self-sufficient so they do not have to feel uncomfortable about what I am going through. They want me to overcome everything quietly while simultaneously making me feel like I am too much if I openly admit that I am struggling.

Photo is AI Generated 

The three people I picked for today’s exercise are X, Y, and Z.

One of the things I keep realizing lately is how often I have been made to feel like I have to earn my place in other people’s lives. It feels like I am constantly being evaluated based on what I “bring to the table,” what value I provide, or whether I somehow deserve to be included. After a while, relationships stop feeling safe and start feeling transactional.

The ironic part is that I actually do more “adulting” than many people around me can even imagine. I solve problems constantly. I manage stress constantly. I work constantly. I carry emotional, financial, and psychological burdens every single day that many people would collapse under if they had to carry them for even a short period of time. Yet somehow, I still end up feeling like I am sitting at the kids’ table emotionally while everyone else gets treated like they naturally belong.

It reminds me of sitting in the corner during board meetings when I was younger or feeling like I was not fully included in spaces where other people automatically fit in. Except now I am an adult, and I still feel like people are asking me to justify why I deserve a seat at the adult table in the first place.

X recently told me that she wished she could help me more, but she has financial problems and her own family to take care of. Then she suggested that I go stay in a homeless shelter.

I know she probably believed she was being practical, but comments like that hurt more than people realize. I am already living in a hotel while trying to rebuild my life and find stable housing. When people say things like that, it reinforces this feeling that I am somehow outside of normal life looking in while everyone else gets to exist inside the comfort and safety of belonging somewhere.

Then Y told me that I have to “earn the right” to be part of people’s lives.

That statement stayed with me because I do not believe human beings should have to constantly earn the right to matter to other people. Healthy relationships are not supposed to feel like performance reviews. They are not supposed to feel like people are constantly calculating whether you are useful enough, successful enough, emotionally easy enough, or convenient enough to deserve love, care, support, or connection.

I think one of the hardest things for me lately has been realizing how conditional many relationships actually are. My life is difficult and unstable, so people emotionally distance themselves while subtly treating me like my struggles are evidence of personal failure.

And honestly, I am tired of being compared to addicts or alcoholics simply because I am struggling and unsupported. That is what people think. “Why is this happening to you? Are you on drugs? Are you bipolar?” I am not someone destroying my life with drugs or alcohol. I am someone trying to survive while largely doing everything alone. There is a difference.

What has happened to me is the result of not having a support system and being made to do everything alone so often that other people gasp and find it horrifying and cruel.

What hurts is that sometimes it feels like people watch me suffer from a safe emotional distance while still expecting me to reassure them that I am okay. They want me to perform strength, resilience, and gratitude for them while never fully allowing me to fall apart, need support, or be emotionally vulnerable without judgment. I am struggling and suffering, and they want me to comfort them.

Then there is Z.

Z has hurt me in quieter ways, but quiet hurts still hurt. Sometimes being emotionally dismissed, overlooked, or treated like an afterthought hurts just as much as direct criticism because it reinforces the feeling that you are not deeply valued by the people around you.

I think that is what I keep coming back to lately. If people truly cared about me and truly wished me happiness, I do not think I would be living in a hotel right now trying to figure everything out alone. People who genuinely care about someone usually try to help carry the weight instead of standing at a distance explaining why they cannot.

I am wishing happiness for them because I feel like others do not wish happiness for me. If they truly cared about my happiness, my whole adult life would not be like this. They would not think that hypercriticizing me, saying hurtful things, or degrading me were somehow helpful.

I hope they experience peace, emotional safety, and real support. I hope they experience relationships where they feel valued, accepted, and cared for without constantly having to prove their worth. I do not have that. And honestly, I hope someday they understand what it feels like to need support and how isolating and lonely it feels when no one really shows up for you.

I am wishing happiness for others because I deserve for others to wish happiness for me, too. If you really care about someone, you want them to have a good life. You do not tell them to live in shelters, tell them it is not your problem, or pretend everything happening in their life is entirely their fault when they are not even a bad person.

Sometimes I think people convince themselves that struggling people deserve what is happening to them because it allows them to emotionally distance themselves from the situation and avoid feeling responsible for helping.

The Best Thing That Happened to Me Today

1. A friend reached out to me unexpectedly and provided me with some much-needed support.

10 Things I Am Grateful for Today

1. I am grateful for the food I had to eat.
2. I am grateful for the memory of the ruck hike I did on Memorial Day weekend during my first year in Idaho.
3. I am grateful for all the Memorial Day picnics I went to throughout my life.
4. I am grateful for all the men and women who died in service to our country.
5. I am grateful for the rain we had today.
6. I am grateful for the roof over my head and the bed I have to sleep in.
7. I am grateful for my own ability to plan and try to keep myself calm during a crisis.
8. I am grateful that I listen to everyone I encounter because I believe we have something useful to learn from others.
9. I am grateful that I have never wished on others what has happened to me. I would never do to someone else what has been done to me.
10. I am grateful that I know I bring something of worth to the table, even if it is just a fork.