Vixen Manual - Karrine Steffans [114]
Happiness is relative. What makes you happy may annoy the next person, or it may not even register on his or her radar. It is not something you can define or put in a can. It is a state of mind brought on by things that matter to the individual. Most importantly, happiness is a decision. If you’re trying to find happiness by comparing your life to the lives of others, you’re destined to be disappointed, for that kind of happiness is both elusive and fleeting. If you’re basing it on the life you used to live or the life you wish you were living, you’ll never be happy or satisfied. Until you find your square, that place in the world that defines who you are and what brings you peace and joy, you’ll always feel displaced and misplaced. You’ll always be off put and off-putting. And an off-putting woman, more times than not, will find herself without a quality man or friends.
Make the choice to be happy. That doesn’t mean you have to explode with joy at every turn and never be angry. What it does mean is that you choose to see the good in life versus always hunting out the bad. When you shine your light on the world instead of aiming your laser beam of destruction, more light shines your way. Be happiness. Happiness, in turn, will surely be with you.
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Recap
No man wants to be bothered with us when we are utterly unhappy.
Sometimes it’s difficult for us to see ourselves and even more difficult for us to believe the opinions of others as it pertains to our behavior.
Use criticism as an opportunity to evolve.
There are options, including medical ones, if your anger, depression, and resentment are at levels which even you don’t know how to manage.
Choose to see the good in life versus always hunting out the bad.
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Chapter Fifty
Settling
I hate to break this to you, ladies, but odds are you’ll never find that perfect man who does everything right all the time and comes with absolutely no baggage. He just doesn’t exist. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the same holds true when it comes to us women. We don’t do everything right and we certainly don’t come baggage free, so we have no right to demand that of a man. We’ve been convinced, however, that if we choose a mate who is not letter-perfect in every way, we are somehow settling, the implication of that word being that we are taking on something that is substandard or lacking in quality. The harsh truth is, we’re all settling. Even when you find the right guy for you, you’re settling in some way. The irony is that, once upon a time, settle wasn’t a negative word, especially when paired with the word down. Settle down, per Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, means “to take up an ordered and stable life.” That is a good thing. Somewhere along the way, however, settling took on a negative connotation and it doesn’t have to be so. There’s still a way for you to turn it into a positive, where it does, in fact, mean you are taking up “an ordered and stable life.”
Let’s say there are ten things on your list describing the perfect man. The chances of you finding a man embodying all ten items are extremely slim. There will be at least one request he cannot fulfill. He is human, after all. Would you throw this nearly perfect man away because he comes up short in one area? Do you hone in on that one missing thing, or do you focus on the nine areas where he hits a home run? I truly hope none of you chose the former. If you’re smart, you’re going to snatch this man up and make him yours, because since you started this dating thing, you’ve probably been mostly bumping into men who could barely meet one of your requirements, much less nine! If you choose Mr. Nine Out Of Ten, guess what? You have just settled!