Why you cannot take Responsibility for everyone else's Happiness

Why you cannot take Responsibility for everyone else’s Happiness – 29 Mar 13

Post author:Balendu
Post published:29/03/2013
Post category:Happiness
Post comments:0 Comments

I told you last week that we had many people at the Ashram. All rooms were full and of course we all had a great time, especially during the Holi celebration – the more people, the more fun! At the same time however it was lots of work. Of course, more people need food, water, information on the time plans or the festival itself. Obviously our Ashram already has quite good practice in taking care of so many people and so we were positive that everyone would have a good time – but could we have guaranteed that before? Could we have taken the responsibility that everybody enjoys? No, surely not! This is not only true for us but for each and every person on this world. You cannot be responsible for everyone else’s happiness. Let me explain why.

If we stay with the example of our Ashram, it is of course our wish that everybody is happy while he or she is with us. We are happy when people enjoy their time at the Ashram and we also have joy in preparing celebrations and events which people can enjoy even more and get to know an authentic part of Indian culture, too.

This is how we plan our big Holi celebration for example well in advance, imagining all the fun we will have with new and old friends. When we have guests whom we don’t know, we cannot tell whether they would feel comfortable being in the center of all colours – it is impossible to know that before! If they want to enjoy the full fun, get into the party and don’t skip even a bit of the Indian celebration, they get out and get wild along with us, throwing colours, powder, water and flowers together with everyone.

If they don’t enjoy the craziness that much, it is also fully fine! They can step aside a bit and not get into the middle of the game so that they don’t end up with that much colour. If they prefer, they can even go into the ‘no-colour-zone’ inside the Ashram and have fun while watching others get coloured more and more.

The main point is that we can only take responsibility up to a certain degree. We can arrange colours, water and the place. We can put music on and we can ourselves contribute to the happiness by laughing, dancing and having fun – which we would anyway do. We even promised the blond ladies this year that their hair would leave the Ashram in its original colour and we succeeded in keeping our promise! They all got oil and mud onto their heads as well as shower caps and cloth around which all prevented colour from reaching their hair.

At some point however any participating person needs to take his own responsibility and act according to what makes him happy, as nobody else can exactly know about that. If you tried to make everyone around you happy, you would never succeed. You would do your best but still someone would not be happy. In that you would forget your own fun and joy!

Of course you want to make everyone happy. You should not however make the happiness of others more important than your own happiness, otherwise you will make yourself unhappy – and won’t be able to help others!

We are thus happy that we all enjoyed Holi and that really every single one of our guests and friends was happy while participating! Everyone knew that his happiness is his own responsibility and thus went only as far as he or she was still enjoying. In this way, we can all say that we had a great time together!

See pictures of our colourful Holi celebration!