Love Advice: Be Comfortable Or Be Happy?
A stunning article by Olga Valyaeva about how a woman chooses one of two possible paths—either to be comfortable or to be happy. These paths lead in different directions, and on each of them, we learn different things.
Why does Vedic knowledge not work for us? Different women face this, and many are disappointed. Did everything “as it should be”—got some wrong result. Sometimes even opposite to what was desired. Why?
Because we have come up with the idea that a real woman is a convenient woman. This is exactly how we hear many lectures; this is exactly what we try to achieve. To become convenient for society, for the husband, for the children. The one with whom everyone feels good and comfortable. At any cost. Who will feed you in any case—even if she has to cut off her hand? Who will “tie up” the life of her child, secretly unraveling her own, as they say in one famous poem? Who will forgive everything, understand, accept, and cope with everything? Preferably silently and independently. But are such examples described in the Vedas? Are such women praised there?
We don’t delve into this; we don’t read sources; our minds are often too weak to think. We think in stencils and ready-made templates. In order for the husband to earn more, you need to stop arguing with him and feed him. And so the wife doesn’t argue (but chokes inside with all the millions of words and arguments); she cooks with all her might. But there is no result! None at all! Sometimes the husband can even “suddenly” snap at his wife, despite her “compliance.” Who is to blame for this? Of course, the Vedas! At least he didn’t yell before, but now it’s even worse.
And all because we try to become comfortable. And in this place we reject ourselves, suppress our peculiarities, and destroy ourselves from within. And of course, this makes our loved ones behave differently. This provokes unpleasant events in life. This is a road in a completely different direction, not to happiness, alas. Because what kind of femininity is this?
I’ll be honest. A real woman is inconvenient. She knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to ask. She has self-esteem and doesn’t sell herself. She is emotional. Sometimes too much. She hears herself, and it’s hard to impose something on her against her will. She sees the meaning of life and isn’t ready to give it up. She is alive. She is not a robot or a doll. She is unpredictable, impulsive, changeable, and emotional. And as a result, inconvenient. She cannot be predicted or subdued, and you can’t just take advantage of her.
It is much more convenient in everyday life to be the one who carries everything on herself, even if she is not asked to do so. Or the one who is easy to drag into bed without taking responsibility for her, only promising something—or even without promising anything. Or the one who does not want anything and does not ask for anything. Or the one who has suppressed all feelings in herself and never screams. Or the one who can perform the duties of a wife for years without being a wife and without asking for it out of fear of losing. The one who earns money on an equal basis with a man. The one who is always in jeans—and can do everything in them, both necessary and unnecessary. Or the one who tolerates any abuse from her husband. Or the one who has completely forgotten and abandoned herself. Or the one who does not know how to refuse, who can be instilled with other people’s desires and thoughts. She is really more convenient. But can you really love her? And can she truly love herself?
For me, probably the best compliment was the one my husband recently gave me at the Singapore airport (by the way, that day we took a 6-hour flight with our whole family, and I was wearing a very beautiful sari the whole time):
I am really very inconvenient for my husband. I like to dress up, and I have a lot of outfits. I haven’t carried any bags myself for a long time, including those with my own outfits. Almost everywhere and always I am in a long dress, which automatically means that my hands are busy, I walk slowly, I need to be given a hand and have doors opened for me. I always need something; I always know what I want. It is unrealistic to make me do something. I am emotional, and I can cry over nonsense and be offended for a short time because of some joke. I am very picky about food—in addition to the fact that I am a vegetarian. But it turned out that this makes me even more loved and valuable to him.
There is a suspicion that a woman chooses one of two possible roads—either to be comfortable or to be happy. These roads lead in different directions, and on each of them we learn different things.
- To be happy, you need to learn to listen to your heart and follow it. To be comfortable, you need to listen to the opinions of everyone around you and adapt to them in every possible way, even if you don’t want to.
- To be happy, you need to learn to desire and accept what you desire, to give and accept love. To be comfortable, you need to learn to give everything without ever asking for anything.
- To be happy, you need to reveal the potential that is already inside you. To be comfortable, it is enough to do what is accepted and correct. Even if it is contrary to your own nature.
- To be happy, you need to be able to refuse. Politely, carefully, but say “no” to everything that will not make you happier. Refuse people, activities, and food. A convenient woman agrees to what is given. What was given, and how much was given? A convenient woman does not know how to refuse at all.
- To be happy, you sometimes—and even often—need to go against the flow. To become a black sheep, to seem outdated or strange to someone. To be comfortable, you can always do what everyone around you does. And you don’t even need to turn on your brain.
But the main thing is that the path of a happy woman ultimately leads to everyone else being happy around her. There is no happiness around a convenient woman. There is, perhaps, satisfaction from using each other—a smooth and predictable feeling of comfort. But there is no happiness. Why do we decide that to be happy we need to be convenient?
How do we become comfortable?
1. Children’s programs
Most parents try to make a convenient child out of any living child. So that he walks in formation, eats what is given, does not stand out and does not argue, obeys unconditionally, does not disgrace, and sleeps on schedule.
Of course, parents’ work is not easy. Especially if they both work. Then you want to reduce the amount of stress, add predictability. And a “live” child in this case is very much a hindrance. And it begins: “stand still,” “you’ll get by,” “keep quiet,” “listen to what they say,” “it doesn’t matter what you want.”
In return, the child receives “”love”—affection, attention, and encouragement. And he absorbs that only the “convenient” ones receive love.
2. Earning love
Another version of the childhood scenario is when we are taught that love is something that needs to be earned. That there is no reason to love us for nothing, and no one will do it. Do you want love? Get an A, wash the floor, and obey.
Then we start to believe it. And we think that if we drag everything on ourselves in the family, we will definitely be loved for it. They will definitely pat us on the head, pity us, and praise us. However, the reality is that the opposite happens. The more you drag, the more they dump you. And the less they love you.
3. When we try to dress comfortably
The first step in a small betrayal of ourselves is how we dress. Again, we make a choice—do we want to be happy or comfortable? And often we choose the latter. But is it worth thinking about what to be comfortable with? To carry, to drag, to lift, to run, to keep up? And where is our happiness in this place?
We refuse beautiful dresses, which most of us like more than jeans. Because dresses make us treat ourselves and our appearance differently, they require us to think about our hairstyles and shoes. Dresses are addictive and require more money. Dresses require more care; you need to be more careful in them. Inconvenient, right?
It’s a different story with pants—I climbed in there, ran back here, and painted the door at the same time. You can go weeks without washing them (no one will notice anything), you don’t need to iron them either, and you can update them once every few years. But why?
4. When instead of serving, we begin to serve and attend
Convenient women—and those who strive for convenience—hear the principle of service exactly this way. And they take on even more different tasks. And the difference is huge. Service elevates, and subservience humiliates. Because in the first case we start from the needs of a person, and in the second, from his desires.
At the same time, if you give a person what he needs, it is not always pleasant. Sometimes he needs a bucket of cold water or distance and detachment. Something from which he will become wiser, stronger, purer—and ultimately happier.
If we try to satisfy all of a person’s desires without giving him what he needs, we only corrupt our loved ones, humiliate ourselves, and lose the opportunity for both of us to be happy.
5. When we lose our dignity in pursuit of what we consider love
Yes, it’s about deserving love again. About how such a model of relationships deprives us of our own dignity. There is a huge substitution of concepts inside us, and we consider love as a payment for our behavior. Of course, only good and convenient.
But a person can and should be loved in any way. In any state. With any behavior. And the less he deserves it now, the more you need to love. But the manifestations of love can be different.
We transfer this model further to our children. And instead of teaching them to be happy, we teach them how to be comfortable. Boys suffer less in this place. They still take the father’s model, and men have different software failures.
However, our daughters are emerging as the next generation in this “convenience” era. With each generation, this concept expands. And what seemed unacceptable before has long since become acceptable in our time. And where our daughters will go depends on what choice we make.
And yes, it is very important to make the right choice. And if you have been going down the wrong path for many years, find the courage to admit it—and turn in the other direction.
You don’t need to be comfortable. You need to become happy—in the blissful sense of the word. So happy that this happiness fills all the space around you. Then this happiness will warm your loved ones, and then it will light up your entire home and multiply the love in it. And by the way, being happy in any circumstances is a huge job, although at first it doesn’t seem so. A huge job of the soul, which no one has told us about before. It may be even more interesting now! Study all this yourself and try it out.
And yes, finally, let’s see what Srimad-Bhagavatam writes about women:
Not a word about convenience. Only some rules of etiquette and basic skills. But virtue is mentioned twice—being filled with goodness. And what kind of woman can be filled with goodness? Only a happy one. Are you still in doubt about which path to choose?
