When I was in school and got good grades, I would go home and show it to my mum. I remember flaunting my ‘Crown Loaf’ in cookery class when I got ten out of ten. I told my mum all about it whilst relishing the home made bread with her.

When we feel good or achieve something, we want to share that feeling with somebody we feel we are close to, someone who will feel good for us in return, someone whom we can trust, who knows us and can experience the extent of how much of ourselves has gone into achieving that particular thing. It can be a friend rather than a family member depending on what it is that we accomplished and on our personal circumstances of that time.

Whom we share our happiness with depends on different stages of our lives.

As children, we would share it with our parents. My seven-year-old nephew got a gold star three weeks after getting a bronze (in the first week), silver (for the second week) and finally a gold for his last week of spelling test. He was elated to say the least! A seven year olds’ World is his parents so it’s obvious his joy doubled when he shared his success. It goes without saying that his Parents pampered him by treating him to his favourite dessert.

Sharing with parents continues throughout the teens but it does get somewhat limited. Academic success and happiness is shared at times but personal happiness such as, getting a girlfriend/ boyfriend remains just for friends. It’s not because they love their friends more than Parents; it’s because they can relate this experience with their friends more. At times, this is when Parents discover that their children are growing up and need their own space. This is the time to respect their privacy and wait till they communicate their happiness with you. When children are comfortable, they do.

College life is not sharing much with Parents time. Parents will never ever be able to understand anything; they are too old and have not experienced anything and if they have, that was in the Stone Age, when it was a complete different time (I mean can you imagine they had landlines then?).

Friends become our World at this time. To some extent, they become our extended family because we live with them or spend most of our time with them sharing emotions and experiences.

My life was my friends during my time at college and yes to some extent, it was selfish of me but isn’t that time meant to be just for friends or is it? I say this because I am on the other end of the stick now! Life…it comes to a full circle.

There’s a sweet moment in life between college and reality, when we fall in love and meet our partner. The World now revolves around them. The moments of love, smiling into each other’s eyes, knowing (or pretending to know) that we are fully understand them inside out. We are totally aware of their needs, moods, negatives and positives. The pure, undying love blinds our thinking skills and we ooze out all our achievements to them. We get praise, love, hugs and perhaps flowers and card in return to support our achievements. This in turn motivates us to share all our emotions with them even more…the beautiful days of true love!

After having a family or settling down in our lives, we go several ways. We share our happiness with:

• Parents
• Friends
• Spouse
• Nobody
• Children
• Any combination of above

This phase is when we have experienced life a little and feel confident to make wise decisions. This phase teaches us a lot about our relationships, friends, jobs and it’s during this time in which we experience the reality of life. There’s a routine in the life now, of job, children, and house- hold chores. We adapt to sharing our joys with different people with whom we can relate with depending upon what our happiness is about.

When one is expecting or is pregnant, it’s natural to share this happy news with the spouse or partner, first. If one gets promoted or is selected for a job interview, it’s usually the partner who gets to hear the good news first too. I distinctively remember when I phoned to inform my husband when I got a new job and he shared my joy over the phone. I did it again when I got another one. That’s because he was a part of my life and had gone through the emotions, which I had when I was applying for the jobs. He was my support system and helped, motivated and encouraged for me.

However, there can be strange incidences of when a spouse prefers to share their part of success with someone else first. I recall an incidence, shared with me by a colleague. Her husband had gone through a very tough and prestigious exam to advance his career. He passed second time round. She was in tears of relief and delight when he phoned her because she had experienced all his stress and emotions. After the first few minutes of the phone call, she asked casually if she should call and tell his mother. He hesitated and said, no. She knew at that time that he had phoned her first and informed her of his accomplishment. She felt foolish and very hurt but she never ever mentioned it to him.

We often take up hobby classes like, music lessons, learning a new language or going to yoga classes for personal growth, the first person to share happiness about anything, which happened within the class, would probably be your classmates or a close friend. It’s because we feel that as classmates, they would have experienced the situation more, they would be able to gauge our sense of contentment or share our joy with us more than our families who are probably not in the same space.

Sometimes it feels good to share some of our happiness with our children first. I remember walking back from school to home, I saw my mum from a distance. She smiled and signalled with her hands that she had passed her driving test. I smiled back and gave her thumbs up.

As humans, we are quite clever when it comes to being selective when sharing our feelings with others. This is because the sharing has to weigh up to the intimacy and understanding levels with the person we may be able to share with.

As time goes by, we become even more specific with whom to share our happiness with. We age; we let go of certain friends, family. We become more focused, spiritual, shed some of our arrogance, become down to Earth, happy in our own space, stop taking nonsense from others and become generally more content in life.

In this phase of our lives, we strive for personal, inner happiness. It feels incredible to keep it to oneself because sometimes nobody can relate to what one are feeling, nobody knows what you have gone through to get the feeling, nobody can share or resonate with the true joy which is inside your head. So in an almost naughty way, it’s good to keep some things a secret and dwell in the bliss until you feel like disclosing it to anyone else.

Whatever stage you may be in your life, feel the confidence that your happiness is giving you. Embrace the moment; immerse in it for long enough to gather your thoughts. Compose yourself and share it with the special people in your lives because you what they say- happiness doubles when it is shared with others!