On happiness…
“Ever since happiness heard your name it has been running through the streets trying to find you.” -Hafiz
The construct of happiness has been on my mind lately. We get so many messages on a daily basis of “do this, and you will be happy!” Sounds easy, not! As I consider this idea, I’m curious if happiness is the same for everyone? What is IT? How do we know when it’s there? Maybe because grief is still hanging around after we lost our dog over two weeks ago, happiness has felt inaccessible. In my morning pages today, I decided to take a closer look at what I was after, was it happiness? And what might that look like? How will I know it’s there? What does happiness mean to me, and what has it meant to me?
When I thought of my relationship with happiness a couple memories popped to mind.
The first is of a book club meeting from about 13 years ago when one of the women shared that she just wanted to be happy. The conversation circled around a book we had all just finished, The Next Thing on My List, and our task was to list the next things we might have on our lists. I was struck by her answer, as the rest of us listed experiential or tangible things that we somehow knew would supply a degree of fulfillment. She was the last to answer the question. I was in a very different place in my life then (hungry for corporate success), and very focused on paying down the gobs of debt the hub and I had accumulated in our 20s and early 30s. All I could think about was when our debt was gone, things would be good and then life would be golden and happy. But in reality, as I look back on that memory, I had no idea what happiness might mean other than I would be able to stop feeling the weight of the debt. Huh.
The second memory is my mom saying to me that all she ever wanted for me was to be happy. She said this to me numerous times as I was growing up, and I remember thinking, I have no idea what that even means for me - is it the latest Barbie, a boy liking me, time with my friends? Unfortunately, I settled on the first two, only to find myself on the outside of happiness. At a later chapter in my life, my dad gave my a tiny Halcyon Days box with the words, “be happy” painted delicately on the lid. Again, I remember thinking, I’m not sure what that is. But, if it meant I could stop feeling the numbness of depression, that sounded okay to me. So for me at those points in my life, happiness was the absence of stress, aloneness, sadness, comparison, doubt, and debt. I truly had no idea what was on the other side.
Now I’m in my mid to late 40s (where does 47 fall?), and after a ton of self-exploration, I have discovered that happiness is calm, loving, connection, kindness, collaborative, peaceful, not consuming, compassionate towards myself, and feeling comfortable in my body and about who I am. It’s definitely NOT jumping into the scroll hole on social media where there are all sorts of conversations and content that can disrupt happiness. (Er. Still a work in progress to carefully curate what media I consume on my phone - ha.) It’s not succumbing to compare and despair. It’s not thinking that I’m not enough. It’s not living in a place of fear and staying stuck. It’s not living a life that has expectations for what’s supposed to happen according to my rules. It’s not beating myself up as I age. Turns out, getting older is pretty awesome. It’s the opposite of all of that! For me, in a neat little package, happiness is living in and appreciating the present moment. And as I write this, I find grief getting farther away from me and happiness beginning to return.
I can reach the space of happiness when I write. Read. Learn. Connect. Serve my clients. Support my husband, family, and friends. And dream about what’s possible.
How might you define your unique version of happiness? I know you have one! What experiences and people in your life support that idea? How can you access that space on a more regular basis? What does it look like? What’s possible from that place?
XO