Finding space for happiness
My friend shared an illustration with me recently - a child standing face to face with a polar bear, with the words: “I hope you find time to be happy, not just strong.”
It stayed with me longer than I expected. Maybe because strength is a language many of us speak fluently by now. We fall back into it almost automatically, as if it were the only safe mode we have left. When life pushes, we tighten our grip. When something hurts, we straighten the spine. We keep going. And going. And going.
Somewhere along the way, being strong stops feeling like a choice. It becomes a rule we obey without even noticing: You cannot allow yourself to be anything else but strong. The “but” is important here. It’s a door we quietly close on ourselves.
And after enough years of that, strength grows so large it fills the whole room. It expands, takes over the corners, the ceiling, the floor. It becomes the entire architecture of how we function. And when that happens, there’s barely any space left for happiness to sit down comfortably. Not because we don’t want it. But because strength has claimed all the real estate.
Maybe that’s why that little drawing felt so disarming. It was a reminder - that being strong isn’t the whole story. That we could, from time to time, carve out a little pocket of space for joy, even if strength is still standing guard nearby.