I’m not sure what misconceptions people have about happiness since I don’t know how they perceive happiness.
I do know that happiness is elusive. If we go chasing it, we don’t always find it. If we stop chasing it, happiness often finds us. And even if happiness doesn’t find us, there are other things that are just as important: contentment, being at peace, meeting challenges, living a meaningful life, making a difference to someone, helping others find happiness, creating something, growing a garden.
Sometimes, too, not being particularly happy is a proper response. Most reasonable people, in a tornado, try to get out of the wind, not revel in the devastation. Most reasonable people do not revel in misfortune, theirs or others. And, unless laughter is one’s way of dealing with anything intense in life, unhappiness during a time of grief is an entirely appropriate and reasonable response.
Neither happiness nor unhappiness is a constant state. Both are in flux and either can change in a moment. And so can one’s perception.
Studies have indicated that happiness is found mainly in retrospect. For example, happy children don’t know they are happy. They simply are. It’s only later, when they look back, perhaps after a terrible time in their adult lives, that they realize they had been happy in their early years. For another example, when someone is involved in a challenging situation that takes all their time and energy, they don’t realize until later they were happy. In fact, often while going through this situation, people thought they were decidedly unhappy.
Think of some of the happy times in your life. Back then, were you aware you were happy? Chances are, you were involved in living and didn’t bother to stop to think how you were feeling at the moment. You just lived. Not pursuing happiness as such, just simply living with whatever happiness came your way.
Oddly, happiness can also be found in anticipation. When a person is going through a difficult time, sometimes they get through the days by looking ahead to future happiness. Those who are grieving can hope for a time when joy might come again. If work is difficult, people can find happiness in planning a vacation.
In other words, happiness is not generally found in the present; it’s a construct of both the past and the future, which seems to make happiness irrelevant to the present.
Perhaps oddly, I have never considered happiness something to pursue. Even before I realized happiness was something lived in retrospect, I never thought it was relevant. I thought other things were more important. Trying to be a good person, for example. Doing the best I could for myself and others. Learning, for sure — I have always pursued knowledge, have always searched for a deeper truth.
I wasn’t happy very often, but it didn’t seem to matter. In fact, being not happy (neither happy nor unhappy) is my default state, so perhaps I’m not the best person to be blogging about happiness.
Still, having said all this, whatever your conceptions of happiness are, I hope you find what you are looking for.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
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