I know that sounds peculiar but let me explain.
I know wholeheartedly that happiness is completely within our control-so if I know this, why would unhappiness be so scary for me?
Unhappiness is like a hungry monster who takes a bite out of you and wants more.
Unhappiness is a wolf at the door trying impolitely to get in. He is banging so hard at times he is almost able to knock it down. In those moments, heavy reinforcements are required. Sometimes the barricade is made up of self talk, sometimes quick and poorly appointed choices and sometimes even delusion.
Interestingly though there is no such thing as delusion with happiness or unhappiness- how we feel about our level of happiness/unhappiness is entirely subjective regardless of what we have or don’t have in our lives. No one can tell us we are happy. No one can tell us we are unhappy. WE TELL OURSELVES.
Happiness is a first world notion, the pursuit of happiness a goal not even hitting the radar in much of the world’s population. For many the only goal is survival, for others it is service. Pursuit of happiness can feel like an indulgence and therefore whining about unhappiness can seem so selfish and shortsighted given our collective and individual good fortune. I always fight unhappy feelings because I feel it is my duty as a lucky girl with so much good stuff in my life.
Sometimes I feel like giving into unhappy feelings is a cop out or a dangerous slippery slope. If I give in to it, I relax enough for it to take another bite of me. If I give in to it then the good I have will get swallowed by the bad and then I won’t be able to find the good anymore.
If I can’t find the good then I won’t deserve it and it will slip away.
I have been thinking a lot about our affection towards happiness and our embarrassment over unhappiness. People who walk around unhappily all the time, grumbling and mumbling, I avoid, worried they might suck the goodness out of me or somehow infect me with their misery. So for that, I don’t ever ever want to resemble them.
Lately I have been trying to think about unhappiness as a gift and a signal- a need for a shift in a specific area of my life.
Five years ago I was at a dinner party and a friend asked each of us around the table “On a scale of one to ten-how happy are you?” I normally love these games but the timing of this particular one was lousy. When it came to my turn I did not choke over the answer, I did not whisper, and most importantly for me at that time, I did not lie. I spoke clearly and said “I am a 2 where 1 is misery.” There was silence. My ex husband was speechless-he knew it well but knew I was too private normally to share. My friend who asked the question was shocked and he turned to my good friend at the table and said
“She is one of your best friends, did you know ?” She did not. I hid it well. I was trying desperately to get out of my marriage. This one, honest declaration of unhappiness helped.
But what if it were ok for me to say “I am lonely” or “I am afraid” or I am in an unhappy pocket sometimes? Maybe it would not sound like whining but an attention to an indication in my life that I need to pay attention to a certain area, that I have work to do.
All those song lyrics about how the difficulty makes the goodness more beautiful. It is true. But it is so hard to see it that way. Difficulty makes everything sparkle like a gem if we let it. Unhappiness is a gift if we heed to it and act on it and wrestle it to the floor with new steps in the right direction.
What if we could look unhappiness in the face and say “bring it” because it would let us shake things up and feel our power? It might be the change we need to take.
This resonated with me too. I’ve spent the past year on my own happiness project; trying to be happier, feeling stupid to be unhappy. I’ve read Deepak, Gretchen Rubin and many others. I’ve exercised, socialized, slept more, …. you get the idea. But, I haven’t totally confronted the real, deep, problems. It’s time.
Contentedness is a good word. We can’t be happy all the time, that’s not the way our emotions work. And yes, we control our contentedness to a degree, but, other people sure affect us and it’s sometimes very, very hard to resolve issues where others are involved.
One of the most annoying things I’ve ever heard it “When I wake up in the morning I decide to be happy”. Punch. In. The. Face.
Also, people who are always miserable are hard to deal with. But so are Pollyannas. No?
This one really resonated with me Nancy. Complaining is a bitter habit to break (so best not to go there), and happiness is a choice. We sometimes have to remind ourselves: “I’m so lucky!, I’m so lucky!, I’m so lucky!”
I love that you’re exploring this, Nancy – especially these days. I often think how I have nothing to complain about… first world nation and all… indeed, I haven’t had to scrounge for food, or shelter my family from war or natural disaster – I feel thankful for this. But I also think all things are relative… I believe in the idea of contentment over happiness, mostly, only because I’m not sure one can be out-and-out happy all the time. Cheerful? Well, sure – and that’s just being civil in society. Maybe I just don’t worry about it much, because I’m pretty good at getting back to the basics about what there is to be happy about. I dunno. This is interesting.
I HATE the thought of you ever feeling you were at a 2… but now that you know what that feels like, you can consider yourself happier than that, at least most of the time, right? That’s a good thing!
Nancy,
you raising that the pursuit of happiness is not a common notion really, really resonated. Happiness in the modern context is so generic it can be debilitating.
Thank you for illustrating that telling someone who cares or can help specifically that things are sucking can be most useful and mobilizing.
I really liked one aspect of “The Invention of Lying” movie. It really boggled my mind what life would be like if people were de-facto truthful at least a significant amount of the time. Not ego-truthful, but the total opposite. I think this is why people find Brittish and European humour so gut-busting funny. When someone really tell the naked truth, it can be so funny because it forces us to recognize what we are afraid of.
Keep bringing it!
i
I like this idea of contentedness, Julie! It seems very grown up and temperate. BUT I do like the spastic, hyper excited pull me off the ceiling HAPPINESS though. It can be exhausting to maintain though.
i think happiness is overrated a bit…but hear me out! 🙂 to me, a constant state of happy is tiring, however, being content…now there’s something we can strive to be.