When you live with someone who sees the glass as half empty, it is very difficult to find happiness with such a person because no matter how hard you try, nothing is ever good enough, the time is never right enough and your lives are not perfect enough therefore happiness has to be postponed. This is quite common with ambitious people who will stop at nothing to attain the level of success that they have defined for themselves. These individuals spend a great amount of time measuring their life’s contributions to their life’s worth as well as compare their growth, achievement and success with others. Even though these individuals are high-achievers, nothing ever seems to mean much to them because they have not attained the success that they aspire.

Ironically, while others who probably do not have as much as these individuals would envy them and even wish that they had just a little of what they have, these high achieving individuals rarely stop to appreciate what they have and even sacrificing their relationships with spouses, children and family for the success that they dream of. The trouble with living with such an individual is that they cannot live in the moment, they find fault in seemingly simple ‘imperfections’ that shouldn’t matter and their obsession with perfection cripples your every attempt at promoting some level of happiness in the home. So what happens is that they bring their frustrations from the work place, offload them on you and expect you to delay your happiness because now is not the perfect time to be happy. “We will be happy when the promotion that I am seeking comes” or “We will be happy when the money I am expecting comes” they seem to say even though they do not actually say it but they seem to convey to you that you would have to postpone your happiness for the right time. Or they give you a plan B which is quite simple and takes the blame from them entirely – they tell you not to rely on them for your happiness as no one individual can give another individual happiness. Good advice, I guess because truthfully, that man or woman is not going to change; he or she will not suddenly become easy-going, happy-go-lucky. It will not happen in this lifetime!

Sadly, while we are postponing our happiness for the right job, the right promotion or the right time, life happens. For a start, your kids, if any, keep growing and moving on. They begin to learn to adapt to not having you around and become detached from you because even when you are physically there, you aren’t bringing them any joy or happiness. They acknowledge that you care and love them; but you will not be the first parent they turn to when they are having problems. So, life moves on; your spouse or partner equally moves on and learns to build his or her life away from you where he or she is guaranteed happiness. In the end, when you are old and grey, you will look back on your life and only find emptiness – yes, you would have attained the success that you think is more important but by then, happiness truly would have eluded you.

The old saying that he who appreciates little things would even more be grateful with bigger things goes for happiness and how we live our lives. If you can’t find happiness in the little things in life, how can you find happiness in the greater things? When do you think is the right time to be happy? When you are rich? When you become famous? When you become accomplished? But what happens in between when you first started and when you ended? Your loved-ones should simply put their happiness on pause for the right time determined by you?