Happiness
I’m musing on happiness, because I’m not entirely sure whether I am or not. I often cry if someone asks me if I’m happy but I’m not sure that’s definitive. I frankly cry a lot — it’s like the 
whistle on a pressure cooker and it’s not a reliable indicator of how unhappy I’m feeling but more reflective of how much stress I’m under. Still, I admit it doesn’t look happy. Not sure what happiness looks like though. And neither does Google because they gave me this: my happiness team (or, actually, Mein Happiness Team, which is even happier. Willst Du Happy sein? Ja, bitte und noch ein bier fur Mein Happiness Team).
And though I don’t run frolicking through the meadows on a regular basis, I also don’t sob myself to sleep at night — mostly I read something engaging and interesting. Which makes me happy. And I’m in bed, which makes me happy. And my children are asleep and my Ed is footzing on the computer and there will be coffee in the morning — all of which make me happy. I am happy to be here. I am happy that I am writing about happiness. On the other hand, this sense of well-being might be better described as contentment. I am content with how things are. I am content with the fact that problems come up and very content that they sometimes go away again. Contentment is quieter than happiness and uncomfortably close to resignation, but (and this is important) it is not resignation. It is the acceptance of the goodness of the everyday.
Happiness is a strange little monster of a burden. Something better pursued than caught, we still measure the worth of our lives in how happy we have managed to make ourselves and wonder how badly we have failed when we cannot shine cheerfully forth upon our fellow sufferers. I don’t, honestly, find that parenthood has pushed the dial on my happy-cheerful meter towards the red. Parenthood is not happy-making in that meadow-frolicking way. It’s too roiling complex and smelly for that. It has deepened my life. It has made me richer, like working manure into the soil. It’s not good when the manure first goes on but give it some time and boy, you’ve got some rather jolly tomatoes springing up.
So even if I’m not happy right now (and I’m not sure one way or t’other) I’m actually okay with that. Content, even.
My mother and I were talking about this the other day. Is anyone truly happy? I left a serious career because I wasn’t happy . . . then I went back to school to retrain . . . and I’m not happy . . . I have an internship coming up which I should be happy about . . . but I’m not. I’m happy when I sit knitting and watching sitcoms. LOL (hardly a life’s career)
Anyways, I sympathize and I understand. Mind you, I don’t have children and your impact is probably very different. Lots of smiles
Drei Happiness Faces!!
Stuntmother makes me happy. And posts like this one give a tiny hint to the rest of the world of quite how much she rocks. Which she does.
Stuntfather: You guys have to be the coolest couple this side of the Mississippi. Or that side. I’m no good with geography. Suffice it to say: what a neato parenting co-op.
And Stunts:
Isn’t this the case of Americans, though? Now, don’t think I am condescending on ANY level, because your insight is fifty times more insightful than my myopic view…BUT…
I would garner that most of us ask these questions, because we are so often told that Happiness equates to money, financial power, things, church-life, etc. Happiness SURELY can’t be found in the home, can it? Surely not!
The truth is…happiness is more than it’s cracked up to be. We can’t go ’round, raging happiness all the time, because we would use up all of our dopamine. Instead, we do become content. And no, it’s not resignation. We can become TOO content and forget to exercise, or meet new friends, but there is nothing wrong with taking stock of your world, and realizing with its faults that we are…content! Just fine!
I guess I take it in small doses, like you. I have no money and very little self-esteem. BUT! I am getting married (contentedness AND happiness) and I’m drinking very fresh coffee (HAPPY!).
So, it goes. These little happinesses stretch a long way when one is ultimatley content.
Thanks for letting me take over your blog!
A friend of mine gave me a magnet that says “serenity is not peace from the storm, but peace within the storm”
I think happiness is alot like that.
It’s funny you put resignation and happiness on the same line. I have always thought to myself that if I was living an easy life, I wasn’t doing things right. That when I died, I didn’t want to look back on my life and marvel that it was easy… I think it is for the same reason you put happiness and resignation on the same line.
I used to subconsciously define how happy I should be based on external things, circumstances, events. When I noticed that, and worked on changing it I became much happier. Now, happiness comes to me based on how much joy I CREATE on daily basis, and how connected I feel to my spirit moreso than things outside of me (Like jobs, school, money etc).
But- happiness is still fleeting and ephemeral for me too. (And I certainly do have alot to be happy for and grateful about) So clearly I don’t have the answers.
Oh, and Fritz- I am jealous of your lovely coffee that you are enjoying this morning, for I adbsent mindedly DID NOT BUY more, and am drinking a much less than half-caf version this morning.
But I will not let this EXTERNAL event affect my happiness.
snore… snore….
Sounds like none of us are raging happy – and yet we all have things that give us a feeling of contentment – from coffee to knitting to just sitting and watching funny tv or reading something engaging at the end of the day. “The acceptance of the goodness of everyday” – perfect. For now, I’ll take that. Happiness does seem like an illusive thing, a balloon whose string is always just out of reach. Maybe that’s how it is supposed to be – something there to keep us from getting resigned to what is, but not something attainable or ownable.
Lovely, thought-provoking post, again.
If you’re happy and you know it…put it in perspective, which it seems you can. Your prose is beautiful.
A husband telling the world that his wife rocks, that makes me smile.
It’s like 50 cent said: “Joy wouldn’t be so good, if it wasn’t for pain.”
OK I’ll bite.
Psychologists study this. If I asked your happiness from 0 (miserable) to 10 (bubbling over with chipperness), what would it be? And what do you think the average person’s happiness would be? World wide? 6.75, based on a meta survey of 1.1 million people in 45 nations. (See Myers American Psychologist 2000 p57). But they haven’t really thought too hard about what happiness is, so we shouldn’t pay too much attention to them.
The trouble is “Happiness” is a word that covers lots of different things. Contentment. Pleasure. Fulfillment. They’re all different. Being actively happy now is different from having a profound sub-soil of happiness. As is having a predisposition to deal with events positively.
But you know what, perhaps happiness isn’t that important. You wouldn’t want to be happy at the funeral of a friend. And how about this: if I put you in a machine and it would make you permanently happy and unaware that you were in a machine, would you go in? Sometimes other things are more important than happiness. Authenticity. Respect, Duty, Peace, Honour, Love, Justice, Hope, Achievement. Truth.
This is from Annie Hall.
“You look like a very happy couple. Are you?” Woody Allen
“Yeah”, the young woman replies.
“So, how do you account for it?”
“I am very shallow and empty, and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say”, says the woman.
“And I am exactly the same way,” adds the man.