The Happiness Factor

I’m constantly blown away at the never-ending human search for happiness.  Because of that mushy mass in our rock skulls we call our brains, we have developed into animals that search for meaning outside our day to day flesh and blood existence.  We want to know how, why, what if, how come.  We think our way into existence.

Our forefathers penned it…and so we live and die by it…the pursuit of happiness.  But what is that exactly?  How do you define something so ethereal, so elusive, so mass-less.  I’ll tell you how, you don’t.  That’s not to say we shouldn’t reach for that “feeling” we call happiness…to find a path toward it.  We should – it is part of our experience as creatures walking the Earth.  We have the capability to feel and express ourselves, so we should use it.

But it is in this desperate pursuit (we were told that we have the “right” to) that leaves so many of our human participants feeling lost, depressed, less than…because we either don’t get it or can’t figure out what happiness is to us – which makes us feel cheated somehow.  Well, if Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson think I should be happy, I guess I should go out and get happy.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way.

Happiness is not something we can go to the grocery store and purchase in Aisle 3.  It’s not something we can buy online, or find in our sock drawer, or get under the plastic surgeon’s knife.  It is a moment in time.  A glimpse.  A pulse.  It comes upon us at odd moments, when we are least expecting it.  When we get a call from an old friend, when we taste an amazing dish, when we get a hug, when we hear our favorite song.  We feel an internal wave of warmth, a spark, a sense of peace.

The age old expression, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey, applies very well here.  Happiness is NOT a destination.  It is not a place you arrive and check into like a hotel.  It is not a continual state of existence.  What it is, is a piece of the journey…a fragment.  No one lives in a state of bliss 24/7…how would that even be possible?  And what would that feel like?  Wouldn’t we get numb to the feeling?  We can experience joy and pain in the same day.  We understand that life is full of it’s highs and lows – yet we fight to embrace that notion.  We want to be happy damnit at all cost.  I’m going to be happy if it kills me!  You can see the absurdity to that statement, yet it is part of our inner monologue….I should be happy, I need to be happy, why aren’t I happy?

IF, we could turn our notion of what it means to be happy and our pursuit of this happiness product on its head, perhaps we can see it for what it truly is.  That it’s only a piece of the life puzzle – that co-exists with sadness, grief and fear.  Happiness and sadness are two sides of the same coin.  Sometimes you land heads up, other times it’s all tails.  But here’s the kicker – that’s OK!!!  It’s ok to be down, depressed and sad…to feel pain and grief…we wouldn’t feel those things if they weren’t meant to be part of the picture.  Giving ourselves permission to feel un-happy at times is the same as giving yourself permission to feel joy.  You have a right to both – and you will experience them both….often.

Perhaps it is in the releasing of the pursuit – the letting go of the reins, that will bring us happiness.  Knowing in our center, that we will smile and we will cry, at any given moment, and that that is part of the package…part of our life span.  Scratching and fighting and crawling our way to happiness won’t make it come any faster or at all.  Release the idea that happiness is a goal.  Be happy knowing happiness will find YOU, and not the other way around. 

Let it pursue each of us.