A Kiss from Rose | Don’t Allow Anyone to Hold Your Happiness Hostage

alstonshropshire3
3 hours ago
3 min read

Don’t allow anyone to hold your happiness hostage.

Read that again.

Don’t allow anyone to hold your happiness hostage.

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned how to dim our light to make other people comfortable. We silence our excitement. We downplay our victories. We shrink our personalities. We stop celebrating. We stop laughing as loudly. We stop smiling as brightly. We stop living as freely.

Why?

Because we’re worried about how someone else feels.

“If they walk in the room, let me tone it down.”

“I don’t want them to think I’m doing too much.”

“They’re having a hard time, so maybe I shouldn’t celebrate.”

“I’ll wait until everyone is happy before I allow myself to be.”

No.

Absolutely not.

Pop your ish.

Enjoy your life.

Celebrate your blessings.

Laugh until your stomach hurts.

Take the trip.

Buy the dress.

Dance in the kitchen.

Take the picture.

Post the memory.

Smile without apologizing for it.

Because when this life is over…

That’s it.

There are no do-overs.

No rewind button.

No second opportunity to relive the moments you sacrificed trying to make everyone else comfortable.

And here’s the heartbreaking part…

People will assume you lived exactly the life you wanted, never knowing you spent years quietly dying on the inside because you were too busy living for everyone else’s approval.

No one wants to make mistakes.

No one wants to get it wrong.

But you have to live the life God gave you.

Not the life someone else expects from you.

Not the life someone else approves of.

The life God entrusted to you.

My Big Auntie has always said something that has stayed with me:

“You gotta get you some happiness.”

And the older I get, the more I understand exactly what she meant.

Stop walking around with your face frowned up.

Stop carrying the weight of people who aren’t carrying you.

Stop allowing other people’s moods to dictate your joy.

Be happy.

Really happy.

Because the truth is, some of the very people you’re dimming your light for may not even show up when your life is over.

That’s the truth.

And if you know me, you know I don’t sugarcoat much.

I shoot straight from the hip.

People will smile in your face while creating an entirely different narrative about you behind your back. They’ll tell you one thing and tell someone else another. They’ll misunderstand you, misjudge you, criticize you, and still expect you to shrink yourself to make them comfortable.

No.

That ends today.

If someone chooses to walk away…

Let them.

If someone chooses not to show up…

Let them.

If someone can’t celebrate you…

Let them.

Instead, pour into the people who are present.

Love the people who genuinely love you.

Celebrate with those who clap when you win.

Invest in those who invest in you.