h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to try to make others so."

That is my new quote for my PS. I agree with the be happy here and now part. I'm having trouble with the making others happy part. Is my mother happy that I visit her everyday in assisted living, take her shopping, buy her things she asks for? I don't know that those things can really make her happy. Nothing really makes her happy while she's angry with me for placing her in assisted living in the first place cause I couldn't take care of her at home.

I'm driving my dad to events tonight, tomorrow and the next night, since he can't drive at night. He will be happy and grateful that I am driving him, but that doesn't really make me happy. I still feel resentful that my evenings are shot even though I didn't have any big plans for them anyway.

We have a roomer who has been in the hospital and a rehab facility for the last 4-5 months. She came back to our house yesterday, but is still not really up for taking care of herself. She needs a lot more help than we can or want to have to give her. She should be in assisted living too, but she insists she doesn't need to be. She asked me to go to Target for her to pick up her prescriptions and I said I would. This will make her happy and thankful and she's paying me (and I do need the money so I'm not going to refuse the funds) but it doesn't make me happy to do this at all.

Maybe I'm just depressed. Maybe that aphorism doesn't really apply to me and is the wrong quote for my page. Maybe there's something wrong with me that making others happy does not make me particularly happy.

Caring for others is hard. I find caring for my children hard. Some of the actual minutes are very enjoyable, I'm fond of them and it can be quite rewarding sometimes, but the constant need to be responsible for and there for other people is wearying.

And I signed up for it - you know what you are letting yourself in for when you have kids, especially the second time round. You didn't.

So I don't blame you for not being made happy by making others happy. I don't think it's weird or anything.

I wish I had something useful to say, but I don't. I'll just note that I wish there was a 'happiness: on/off' switch someplace.

Thanks Ivan and Sol and Heleloo for stopping by.