Happiness.
We want it.
Hey we’re supposed to be happy. It’s our birthright.
Everyone knows this. Every fairy tale says so. In fact we’re entitled not only to happy, but happy ever after.
Hmmm. Are we asking for much?
Naaah.
And if we’re just ok, or neutral, or kind of blah, or, god help us, sad?
Not good enough! There’s happy out there and we don’t have it. Something’s missing, we’re not getting all we should have. Something's wrong.
And what happens to simple okness when we think we’re lacking happiness? It’s out the window, replaced by dissatisfaction.
Hey, that ain’t happy!
The search for happiness actually makes us less happy.
Seems kind of unfair, doesn’t it? Happiness is required, not optional, so there’s a goal to get it, and yet the very existence of that goal keeps us from its achievement.
Aw hell.
But it’s alright, because now that okness has been replaced with dissatisfaction, we have a project.
The Get Me More Happy! project. And in this project, there are rules and should’s and things to Do.
There is a right life to live, and if done right, that will make us have more happy. We must not worry, we must be grateful, we must eat right, get enough sleep, make money, achieve potential, have friends, like ourselves, not compare to neighbors, not be judgmental, be married (in a non-arguing-marriage.)
Got it? All set!
Whew. That (incomplete) list of musts makes an awful lot of folks think there’s something wrong with them.
And if the life we happen to live follows different rules, then nope, no happy for us!
Not measuring up to the rules and right-ways might make us even further dissatisfied with the life we have, and even more unhappy.
To hell with this moderately OK life with its not-a-lot-of-friends or its no-money or its not-enough sleep.
And now we notice the hum of dissatisfaction is near-constant. Something even more to be dissatisfied about.
Yup we're even dissatisfied with being dissatisfied.
This is an unwinnable game.
So what if it’s not about, “How can I get more happy?"
What if it’s not possible to eliminate dissatisfaction, at least not for long?
No matter how many fake smiles, meditations, inquiries, drugs, bolts of enlightenment lightening.
What if that sense of not-enough never permanently goes away?
The human may simply not be capable of this goal we keep striving for.
We can see how this could be. First, because despite all the claims, beliefs, and how-to’s, no feeling lasts permanently.
Not even happiness.
And second, because that sense of, “I want more happiness, peace or enlightenment” is in itself dissatisfaction with what happiness, peace or enlightenment we already have.
Not-enough equals dissatisfied. Dissatisfied equals not-happy.
That unwinnable loop, happily, lets us off the hook.
Because if the human mind is incapable of being content with what it’s got for more than a limited time, then dissatisfaction is normal and inescapable.
No point in fighting it because… inescapable.
And yet of course we do fight it, because that’s inescapable too.
So then there’s nothing we can do about wanting more happiness, and nothing we can do to get it, and nothing we can do about fighting to get more anyway.
This loop is not going to stop. There’s nothing we can do about that either.
It is what it is. And what it is, is... OK.
So paradoxically, there might be some peace in accepting the possibility that as a species, we’re not capable of holding on to real satisfaction for very long.
There might be some liberation in not having to get rid of dissatisfaction, not having to fix this, not having to do the Get Me More Happy project or live by its rules.
We might discover okness in breaking the rules and living alone, or not sleeping as much as we’re supposed to, or eating French fries.
Who knows? That freedom from have-to-be-happy just might make us...
Happy.
For a while anyway.
