Why Bad Things Happen to Good People Part III: The Happiness Myth

We spend so much time covering up, turning away, and building walls around our squishy, gushy, emotional cores that feel so fragile and seem to beg for protection, that sometimes we constrict our emotional airways and miss out on what is happening, and what would be healthy for us to feel. Like a turtle that goes to its shell at the first sign of trouble, how often do we compromise growth because we can't stand the idea of pain?

Happiness is knowing that we are enough; that inexplicably, we are more effective and more love-able because we are weak and vulnerable on the inside. Happiness is identifying the moments in life that validate beauty and support hope. Happiness is a choice, because it means you are willing to live with yourself and see yourself as wonderful, even if it feels like no one else sees you that way. And I can promise you that’s not the case. Ever.

Happiness is that moment when you register life outside of yourself and you realize that it is beautiful. I

like to think that if we were to peel off our fears and our expectations, we would see the simple and majestic connections, the little bits and pieces of decisions and half-realized dreams that connect us to each other and are the very essence of meaning, like the exquisite and mesmerizing threads of a spider web. Basically I'm saying that happiness is recognizing that there is something more than yourself and it is wonder-full, and it is the very bigness of it and the smallness of you that makes you beautiful.

Happiness is not the absence of pain, that logic doesn't work, because complacency is also the absence of pain, but it is definitely not a state of happiness. It is easy to fool yourself into thinking you are happy, simply because you are not in danger, but that is only looking at happiness from its most shallow dimension. 

What I am trying to submit is that happiness is not dependent on any thing, person, circumstance, or event. Happiness is in essence, a perception, an understanding or categorization of events and feelings, a lens to provide clarity and sanctuary. And that, my dears, is a choice. It doesn't erase hard things, or minimize the pain or demean the struggle; instead, happiness imbues the grit with meaning, and saturates our tears with the promise of tomorrow.

“It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.” 
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

I love this quote because it reveals something about the nature of happiness.

 The dictionary defines happy as 1. feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.
                                                                             2. fortunate and convenient.

I more or less agree with the idea that happiness is a state of arrival, or a resolution (which facilitates a feeling of contentment), but I think this definition does not address the fact that happiness is not an end all feeling. Happiness is not an ending, it is a beginning. And whether we like it or not, happiness also has a very short shelf life, which means it needs to be continually nurtured.

Because it is possible for a feeling of contentment or happiness to go stale, it is by nature a progressive emotion, meaning that it constantly needs new information to stay alive, which means it will have to include feelings of discomfort and even pain to have the material to feel happy. 

Happiness is an arrival, but it is that moment when you arrive past your former understanding, when all of a sudden you realize that you are somewhere new, mentally, emotionally, physically, etc. 

When I was in Barbados in January, I had some really neat opportunities, which included drinking coconut water straight from the coconut, feeding monkeys as they sat on my lap, holding a starfish, and going hand-line fishing in the ocean. There was this amazing moment as I held the starfish, and felt it slowly inchworm across my hand. It was a living thing, with its own life, its own world and here I was in my own that did not include seaweed, small microscopic creatures for breakfast, or the occasional shark, but for a small second, my universe and the universe of this strange creature collided. It was then that something broke open

at the base of my consciousness, and I felt a new ray of awareness shining through, and I remember actually thinking "I am so happy right now".  And it was because I felt something new, I felt different, and I felt changed, but in a positive, hopeful, future-looking kind of way.

It's easy to look to basic and often base forms of stimulation, to feel this newness and assume that means that we are feeling happiness, but as with anything, there is a hierarchy to what is most beneficial. Just because it stimulates doesn't means it brings worthwhile awareness. To me, if the awareness doesn't bring hope, you haven't reached the happy part yet. But I also firmly believe that it is possible to see the happy in everything, even if you are currently feeling pain. And in fact, that pain and happy are partners, and not mutually exclusive. 

Once again, happiness is a choice, a way of seeing the world, a state of progression and growth. Happiness is being alive, and being able to feel, really feel what is happening and not be afraid. It's trusting yourself and trusting life enough to take risks, knowing that pain can be embraced long enough to facilitate joy.