On Happiness

I've been thinking a lot lately about this concept of happiness. What does it mean really, and how does one go about finding and keeping it?

There are two quotes I came across several years ago that pretty much sum up how I've viewed happiness for a very long time:

"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking all is lost" -Gustav Flaubert
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." -Ernest Hemingway

I consider myself to be quite an intelligent specimen... no mensa affiliate to be sure, but well above the mean. And yet I have found a significant amount of happiness in my life. That happiness, though, always has been tempered by a certain degree of skepticism about the world around me, a skepticism which has led me to keep seeking... In the name of this underlying uneasiness, I have sought out and gained an infinite amount of knowledge about myself, about culture, science, religion, spirituality... about the world. And so I had to ask myself if people who proclaim consistent happiness ever feel driven to seek in the way that I do... I decided the answer typically was no.

In my experience, people who appear and claim to be genuinely happy do not exhibit a great deal of intelligence or enlightenment. They may possess common sense and even some book smarts, but they typically are not very deep thinkers. Whether this is due to inability or personal choice, I couldn't say. And those who do exhibit proof of deep thought (and understanding) typically seem plagued by some brand of discontentment. I say discontentment because I don't believe unhappiness is always, or even usually, the precise opposite of happiness. Sometimes it is simply a sense of uneasiness. Discontentment.

But about a month ago I had an experienced that prompted me to revisit my thoughts on the nature of happiness. I experienced the break-up of a relationship I did not foresee ending anytime soon, if ever. Said relationship began online. This fine gentleman's profile declared, "People who are genuinely happy don't find much time to be upset about things. Laugh at life, laugh at yourself and you'll find you're luckier than most," implying that he was one of those genuinely happy people. His profile went on to say, "I... am happy to be in a really good place in life, overall..." I was intrigued by this, as I agree with the sentiments and had dated enough bitter pills to know I needed to change that pattern for my own well being. Unfortunately, over the course of several months our relationship revealed an intensely unhappy person who in reality did not have a strong ability to laugh at life but rather chose to brood over all that had not gone according to plan.

It happens, but I felt misled. What gave me pause was the fact that of all the things this individual could have chosen to say about himself in 4,000 characters or less, he chose to focus on the notion of his happiness. He could have said he was funny as hell, a passionate sports fan, eager teacher and learner, a good listener, an adventurous cook... and all of that would have been spot on, but he chose to play the happiness card. Why? Was he simply delusional about the nature of his own character? No, he was able to clearly articulate his discontentment to me on several occasions. Was he simply lying? Mmmm, not intentionally, I don't think. Was he documenting himself as he would like to be rather than as he was? Ding ding ding, we have a winner. And this is what we do in our society. We mask anything we believe others might perceive as signaling weakness or inferiority, and go overboard in portraying notions we don't feel or even understand. Such as "happiness". Whatever that is. And I believe that even many of those who legitimately believe they are happy, and who are loudest about it, don't have a true enough understanding of themselves to know if they really are happy as a way of being, or if they are simply responding to positive forces in their current environment.

Time and time again, I've seen people's lives change for the better, either due to better choices or due to chance (or a combination), and voila, their happiness is declared. I've done it myself. Of course, it stands to reason that when things are going well, you're happy, right? Eh. Not really, at least not in the greater sense of the word, which in my mind really is defined as an overriding sense of contentment that exists in the face of both positive and negative circumstances.... i.e. if the job and the boyfriend go away, you might be angry, worried, hurt, and resentful... but do you feel confident that life will still go on and can you still find joy in life unrelated to those external factors? That, by my definition, is happiness. Or, more accurately, contentment.

I came across an article citing a study which found that 50% of a person's happiness is influenced by genetics. Essentially, our genetic code predisposes us to certain personality traits, and some personality traits are more linked to happiness than others. Seems like common sense, that, but tell it to those who are running around telling people just to "decide" to be happy. Of course, the "glass half full" theory enters here... If 50% of our happiness is influenced by genetics, that means a full half is determined by other factors. So the way I look at it, even in a worst case scenario, in which my genetic code points entirely away from happiness (which seems unlikely), I've got a 50/50 shot at getting there on my own. I'll take those odds, even if I have to work a little harder at it than those who won the genetic happiness lottery.

Which leads me to another idea I encountered in my online quest for perspectives on the topic of happiness... Many assert that a certain degree of unhappiness in life is necessary in order to fully realize happiness. The concept is one of relativity, and it was stated best in an episode of Beavis and Butthead... "Sometimes things have to suck so you know that other things are cool." I agree with this wholeheartedly. Of course those who have led lives free of significant hardship or catastrophe deem themselves happy. As stated above, it's hard not to feel happy when things are going well for you. But are they really content and do they really have the ability to appreciate the small things and experience true joy? I'd submit not. I'd submit that in order to qualify for the label of "happy", you have to have lived in the trenches at some point. Of course, that doesn't mean you stay there. That's where good old fashioned healthy balance comes in.

The Lebanese poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran expressed this concept perhaps more eloquently than Beavis and Butthead:

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

So those are the incoherent thoughts I've had rattling around in my head. The result of all this thought is that there are a few actions I believe I need to take in my own life to find and maintain that balance between joy and sorrow. But all that is for another blog on another day because my happiness tomorrow is dependent on me getting sleep tonight....