In the Vital
Topics Forum, “On Happiness”, anthropologists contrast happiness as either “a
sensory force that colors and shapes human evolution and experience” or “a faceted
reflection of the arrangements in society.” For most people, it is likely both. The notion that “happiness” is a state of
being in “the absence of trouble” is an interesting concept yet not entirely
accurate in my own personal experience. We
are conditioned, specifically in the Western world, to identify our happiness
with varying “successes” in life. These
include but are not limited to career advancement, social status, and romantic
relationships. This sort of “happiness”
is based on external factors rather than internal evolution and is ultimately
fleeting. In this reflection, I will
share some personal experiences that have contributed to my view of “happiness”
and how I, and many others, may have discovered a way to sustain it.
Though we live a
world wrought with abject poverty, horrific violence, and oligarchic rule, I,
for one, plan to remain as happy as possible.
I believe it is often our only defense against the injustices of the
world. This is not to say we should
“bury our heads in the sand” or adopt a “Polly Anna” response for every
terrible event in our lives but, in fact, the opposite. In the article, a conversation occurs between
two Mozambican women who have tragically lost a loved one to war. The insight shared by these two women is
precisely how I have come to understand happiness in my own life. They begin the conversation lamenting the
deceased and effortlessly transition to laughing about something completely
unrelated. When questioned about how
they could be happy amid their grief, one woman replied, “How could you
not?” It seems a foreign concept to
Westerners, but that’s probably because it is.
In the American social construct, there are commonly many conditions
applied to emotions. This causes us to incessantly
question our own state of being which perpetuates a culture of inauthenticity
and ultimately the potential for mental health issues such as depression and
anxiety. These “rules” of emotion are
especially prevalent regarding gender roles, and the implications of this are
extremely far-reaching. From the
reference point of Western society and my own experience with these emotional
restrictions, I marvel at the freedom of the Mozambican women to feel the
breadth of their respective emotions without pause and to ultimately exist
entirely in the present moment.
The quest to stay
present has become somewhat cliché in contemporary society, but in my
experience, it is paramount to sustaining my own happiness. I am a recovering addict. When I was in active addiction and attempting
to get clean, my every action and reaction was governed by my past regrets and
future anxieties. In retrospect, this
was the spiritual malady that perpetuates such cyclical self-destruction. The article discusses how “a human mind is a
wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” Eckart Tolle, a contemporary spiritual
teacher, imparts that we either use our minds or our minds use us. He says that we are capable of “watching” our
own thoughts as if they are the antics of a child rather than identifying
ourselves by the endless chatter in our brains.
His study reveals that when we can gain mastery over this, we can remain
present. Remaining present effectively
silences past and future fears, and allows for more feelings of contentedness
in the “now”. This may not be a viable
path to “happiness” for some, but for me, it spans the gap. There are many ways to bring oneself back to
the present moment, but in some cultures like the Mozambicans in the article,
it seems to exist more intrinsically.
With a few years
of soul searching, constant support, and intensive cognitive therapy, I finally
realized that everything I ever needed, I’d possessed all along. This changed everything. I begun to understand that if it was
forgiveness I sought, I was able to conjure the empathy to forgive myself. If it was love I sought, I had the capacity
to learn to love myself. If it was
comfort I sought, I could find it in discovering my own authenticity. I haven’t used drugs or alcohol in 8 yrs.,
but with every sunrise, this same journey commences. It is, quite literally, a practice in enjoying
the journey rather than anticipating the destination. I have
learned to welcome the difficult parts of life as an opportunity to evolve and
decide how I wish to be shaped by them.
This is happiness to me.
Happiness is lowering my expectations and raising my own questions. Happiness is letting go. Happiness is understanding that the only
thing I know for sure is that I know nothing.
Happiness is recognizing that fear and love cannot exist in the same
space. In my world, happiness is a
choice. I think this is possibly one of
the only ways people can go on manifesting happiness in a world so full of
despair. We choose it because the
alternative is likely death.
From an
anthropological viewpoint, these ideas are probably more spiritual than
emotional, however, if we were given the freedom in our culture to feel our
feelings, we may see more of this type of spiritual evolution in the western
world. The article also touches on
creativity and the liberation from thought that occurs during the creative
process. It seems that primitive
cultures may have more access to this resource as they are artisans by
necessity. Because they often construct
their own tools, homes, dishes, clothing, idols, etc., they benefit from the
relief of such productivity. In more
industrialized parts of the world, this process has all but been eradicated and
replaced with assembly lines and overworked employees who’d rather have a drink
after work than do something creative. For
me, creativity is a spiritual endeavor that brings me completely into the present
moment. I suppose this akin the concept
of meditation. Rainn Wilson once said, “The
making of art is no different than prayer.”
If the idea is to quiet the mind, the creative process certainly has
that affect on those who engage in it.
In conclusion, I’m
not convinced we can measure happiness by scientific standards because it is so
relative to a person’s specific journey.
We are not often in control of our circumstances (rarely, in fact), but
we always possess command of our responses.
It is in this space between that I believe “happiness” is either chosen
or forsaken. This is not to say that it
is an easy process, but it informs our emotional and spiritual conditions in
the most direct way. Likely rooted in
gratitude, it is “wanting what we have, instead of having what we want”. Acceptance is also imperative to the
capacity to live in the present moment.
If we can accept our current situation for exactly what it is, we
effectively free ourselves from the burden of it. The Mozambican women in the article exhibit
this practice exquisitely. Ultimately, I
have deduced that “happiness” is the freedom to decide who we want to be amid our difficult circumstances and not
necessarily in the absence of them.
“I believe that we
are here with deep purpose to be all that we can be. I believe that we are headed ultimately in
the right direction. I believe that we
have been given sufficient stress, crisis, complexity and consciousness to do
things that are beyond our imagination, larger than our aspiration, more
complex than all our dreams. I believe
in love. I believe in you. I believe in me. I believe in this…. The most potent moment in
human history.”
-Jean
Houston-
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