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Is happiness reaching the mountain peak or navigating the rocky road to get there?
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“Happiness is a Warm Puppy,” by Charles Schulz, was one of my favorite childhood books. I always viewed happiness as an enigma, yearning to know what it was.
In a scene from the movie, “28 days,” Gwen’s boyfriend, Jasper, argues his point that happiness is an illusion: “No adult human being is happy. People are born. They have a limited amount of time going around thinking life is dandy, but then, inevitably tragedy strikes and they realize life equals loss. The whole point of the game is to minimize the pain caused by that equation. Now some people do it by having kids or making money or taking up coin collecting, and others do it by getting wasted…everybody hurts everybody. It’s the human condition.” It’s a gloomy perspective but not without merit. We keep setting goals thinking, once I achieve that, I will be happy.
“Why we should all give up on goals already,” is a BBC article that cites studies showing that focusing on the process engenders more happiness than focusing on the outcome. It makes sense. People who exercise only to lose weight or diet restrictively are frustrated and sad. Those who relish activity and conscientious eating enjoy the journey toward good health. Maybe they reach the same results, but in the end, it’s obvious who would likely be happier.
The article talks about getting “emotionally attached to a goal…setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment.” It’s easy to get caught up in that web. I have a tendency to finish what I started whether or not it’s a positive experience. I have stuck with relationships and jobs longer than I should have due to a sense of commitment. My inclination is to adapt and make the best of things for the sake of the goal. Sometimes, happiness is knowing when to let go.
“One of the first problems is the targets people choose…Many aren’t necessarily our own ambitions, but what we think we should do,” according to author Amanda Ruggeri. No wonder so many marriages fail when we are told from the time of our youth by family and media that we should aspire to marital bliss. The same can be applied to political families who raise politicians from the crib whether the child grows up with political ambitions or not. It’s interesting that George W. Bush took up painting and stayed out of the limelight once he left office.
One of the suggestions the article offers is to focus not on the light at the end of the tunnel but on the negative that you want to change. Think about avoiding ill health rather than losing five pounds by the end of the week. Maybe happiness is not the achievement of a long-term goal but a day-by-day process of avoiding what we know makes us unhappy. The question then would be: What do I need to remove from my life that is getting in the way? I’ve learned how to keep my head above water by finding anchors, but that’s not the same as happiness.
I once had a mentor whose name I had used as a reference when applying for a job. My mentor told my prospective employer that I walked on water. The hiring manager said, “It might just be that she knows where the stones are.”
Maybe I do.
A friend who was a social worker asked me my goal almost 40 years ago and I said I wanted to be happy. She said for her happiness was not her goal, her goal was not to be bored. I also remember a social psychology course in college, where I learned that sometimes changing your environment will change your outlook. I have tried to live my life with those two goals in mind. I think I am “happpy” about how I have lived my life, and continue to follow those two guidelines.
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I suppose when I think about it, I have sort of done the same with regard to boredom. I keep busy even in my free time – what the article refers to as a hamster-on-a-wheel mentality, so I don’t allow much time to be bored. I’m not sure about a change of environment for me. Generally, I’m happiest when I’m home. But we both know someone who seems in constant need of a change in environment 🙂
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It sounds like your home is the perfect environment for you. I think when I was in college the change in environment meant moving out of the family home. Now it means clearing the clutter in my home, a continous project when the other person living here does even see it. lol
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You got me thinking today. I think what I meant about your environment is to not internalize your sadness. I used to think it was me when I was sad, and then I started to think about what may be effecting my sadness from the outside. Sometimes it is hard not to change what it happening outside you, but at least it lessens self criticism.
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That makes sense, Ro. I thought you were referring to a change of physical environment, which seems to work for a lot of people; hence the booming travel industry. I fall in line more with those who find ways to adapt to the environment (spatial and human) to which they are subjected rather than migrate away from it. For better or worse, that’s just me. I think that’s what the character, Jasper, was saying in that movie. Life is not inherently happy, and people find their own ways to deal with that. The wonderful thing about young children is their joy of life because they don’t know any better, and it’s infectious.
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