You ever have a day where all is right in your universe? I am talking you wake up, maybe get a little extra loving in the morning, the kids wake up in a grand mood, in other words none of that pesky whining that can drive a parent mad at 7am. The day is just going marvelous and you end up talking to a friend and they just say the most foul, fucked up thing. All of a sudden the sky just got pitch black in your personal world for a few minutes. You brush it off and go on but all of a sudden, you just aren’t feeling as good as you were before that exchange with your “friend”.
Or you are chatting with an e-friend, perhaps you are tweeting about something going on in your day and the e-friend volleys back with a comment that just makes you feel like the world’s biggest idiot.
Everyone has off days where instead of saying the right thing, we just open our mouths and out comes all kinds of madness. Life is like that. The thing though with certain people we cross paths with, they always seem to have a knack for just saying shit that makes you feel like shit. Then to add insult to injury, they often feel obliged to share how wonderful their life is while being critical of you.
Over the past few years, I have come to realize I have more than a few of these types in my life and I have a word for them. They are happiness snatchers. Why you ask? Because they seem to almost take joy in making people unhappy, but unlike a true asshole, they position themselves to come across as kind, caring souls. But let me tell you after dealing with folks like this, I have decided the problem is they are not happy. Repeat they are not happy. As a result they don’t want anyone else to be happy. However unlike folks who openly wallow in their own unhappiness (had one of those too) happiness snatchers are not mature enough to own their own feelings. Happiness snatchers often position themselves in such a way that it seems they are living the perfect life, but as I recently asked myself if your life is so grand, why do you want to bring others down? Misery loves company, plain and simple.
If you have a happiness snatcher in your life, the sad truth is there is nothing you can do for them. I repeat there is not a damn thing you can do for them. Until a happiness snatcher realizes they want true happiness and seeks to make active change in their own life starting with admitting their own unhappiness, keeping them in your life is a waste of energy. So just like we take the trash out because otherwise it will stink up the house at a certain point, we often have to let the happiness snatcher go lest they create madness in our lives.
