Lately I’ve been really confused about which people make me happy. Because a lot of people make me happy, but different kinds of happy. Let me explain. I think the best way to explain this is to call the different types of happy “short term happy” and “long term happy”. I’ll try to stop saying happy now.
As I’m only 18 years old, I’m still trying to figure out myself, what I’m supposed to do with my life and which people I should surround myself with. I’m in high school so the main source of people I know that are my age are in my class. I still haven’t figured out my place amongst all those people in my class, even though I’ve known them all for almost two years now. Everyone seem to have found their people and friend squads but I have not. I wouldn’t say I don’t have any friends in class, because I do have people to talk to but that really depends on how you would define “friend”. I consider them all just classmates to be completely honest. I know some of them better than others, but I feel like I don’t know them well enough to call them friends. I also only see them at school, I never hang out with any of them on weekends or holidays. Considering I’m not 100% myself around them because I don’t feel safe around them, they can’t really be called friends in my opinion, because you shouldn’t feel insecure and not like yourself around your friends.
But here’s the weird thing. Sometimes I do feel really comfortable around them and it feels a bit like they are my friends. This makes me happy, but I think it’s more about being caught up in the moment than feeling genuinely happy. I would like to call this the “short term happy feeling”, catchy name, I know. These moments when I get this feeling, I do feel happy, but only for a short period of time. A few hours tops. It’s that kind of feeling you get when you impress someone you really want to impress or when someone you look up to says they’re proud of you. Maybe this is just that feeling teens get when they do something that gets accepted and praised by the cool kids, who knows. Or maybe it’s just my fragile personality that gets influenced by what a teen is supposed to be like in this high school environment.
I’ve just had a break from school for over a week, which means away from my classmates, away from the school environment and I’ve realised I’ve been away from the “short term happy feeling” too. Does that mean that when I get that feeling I’m just trying to impress people by being a fake version of myself? During this break I’ve visited tons of family, which is the people I don’t have to show off for and don’t have to impress. I’m just existing and communicating with nearly no effort. I’m not thinking about “I should say this because that makes me sound cool” or “No, don’t talk about that you’ll seem like a loser”. I’m quite relaxed. This is why I’d like to call it “long term happy”. Does this mean I am being myself? I’ve been happy for this entire week I’ve been on break, not just for small moments that last a few hours.
I think it all boils down to that we get influenced by whatever people we surround ourselves with and if that’s people we are insecure about and try to impress, we won’t feel genuinely happy. You’ll just feel happy for a short time if you do something that gets accepted, but you will be 100 times more insecure and blame yourself if you feel like you fuck it all up. If you truly are comfortable with someone, you won’t constantly feel scared about saying something wrong. You’ll just feel relaxed and not worry about sounding like a rambling idiot going on and on about different types of happiness.
the autumn journal 