Several years ago, a friend of mine shared with me a birthday card her adult daughter sent her. I’d often admired how she seemed to have successfully navigated that thin line between “friend” and “mom.” They seemed to have avoided the common pitfalls and potholes of mother-daughter relationships and though my mom and I are incredibly close now, I often wonder what it would have been like if we could have navigated my teen years and early twenties as gracefully – and peacefully – as my dear friend and her daughter seemed to. But as she shared with me the heartfelt comments thanking her for the gifts of wisdom and understanding, the closing line gave me pause – “and thank you mom for teaching me that my happiness is always the most important thing.”
I’m not suggesting that happiness is unimportant, or that one’s desire to be happy is somehow wrong or immoral - certainly not - but I do feel that seeking ones own happiness as an end in and of itself is a pointless exercise. Seeking happiness for happiness sake is simply doomed to failure. It’s a bit like trying to give grade-schoolers a sense of self-esteem by playing a game of kickball and saying “there is no score here – EVERYBODY wins.” There is no pride in “winning” a game wherein there is no competition. It’s more like everybody loses. You deny the winners a sense of accomplishment at having played a good game and you deny the losers the impetus to play better next time. It’s ridiculous and pointless and nobody really feels better about themselves for it, I don’t care what some crack psychologist says about it.
Setting out with a simple goal of being “happy” is similar. How does one go about seeking happiness and is anyone ever successful? I would suggest that one’s search for happiness as an end in and of itself is never successful. Why not? From a purely secular point of view, I think there are 4 primary reasons:
1) People confuse “having fun” with “being happy” People often confuse "fun" with happiness and try to be happy by focusing their lives entirely upon seeking one "fun" experience after another - sometimes to the exclusion of anything else. They party, shop, travel, eat, all the while seeking to find happiness in the fun of the "adventure", whatever it may be. The problem is that the happy feeling you get there is only temporary. Once the adventure is over, the feeling quickly fades and you're right back where you were to begin with.
2) “Having fun” is almost always primarily self-focused (how will this make me feel, make me look, etc) Partying, shopping, traveling, eating - all of those things put our focus squarely on ourselves and how entertained we are by the experience. It isn’t so much that they are inherently bad or wrong, but when they become all-consuming we can find ourselves becoming increasingly self-absorbed. It was in my early 20s, during a period where I spent basically all of my time focused on “having fun” that I found myself spiraling into a deep depression, so miserable all I wanted to do between nights out drinking and partying was lay around the house and bemoan my personal miseries. My mother, who saw this behavior as nothing more than ridiculous self-indulgence, told me if I'd spend as much time focused on caring about other people as I did focusing on myself, I'd be a lot happier. At the time I discounted her advice as insensitive and thoughtless. But as I've gotten older, I've realized that there is tremendous wisdom in her words. I fully recognize that there is such a thing as clinical depression and that chemical imbalances can cause depression as well - that's not what I'm talking about here. I'd be willing to wager that some of us who find ourselves under that black cloud of depression, aren't chemically imbalanced, we're relationally imbalanced. If you've ever talked to someone who is depressed, they spend most of their time talking about themselves. "I'm so depressed" "my life is such a mess." "I just don't see a point to it all." It is, in my opinion, why so many of the rich and famous seem to be plagued by chemical dependency problems - all they do is focus on themselves, their beauty, their popularity, their money and a life completely focused on oneself is destined for misery.
3) Getting for one’s self is a poor substitute for giving of one’s self Most things that are self-focused tend to be “getting” activities. You’re buying items for yourself, you’re eating food for your enjoyment, you’re taking the trip to satisfy your sense of adventure, you’re partying for your personal pleasure. But all of that getting doesn’t make you feel as good as giving. I really enjoy buying shoes and I always joke that the reason I love them so much is because it is the only thing I can buy in the same size I wore in high school. I love looking for shoes, buying them, wearing them and then kicking them off in random spots around the house and leaving them for my husband to trip over. But several years ago when I found myself getting into an emotional rut, instead of buying another few pairs of shoes, I decided to volunteer at the local community college as an English tutor for someone struggling to learn the language. I had the privilege of meeting and working with an amazing woman from Vietnam who nearly died getting to this country and who had worked hard to make a life for her children after she got here. But the tutoring wasn’t always easy. For one thing, it was a commitment - I had to show up whether I felt like it or not. Whether I was tired or not. Sometimes I missed fun things I wanted to do because I had to tutor that night. Sometimes I had to give up my wants – whether it was an evening decompressing in front of the TV after a tough day at work or a night out with the girls – because I was giving to someone else. Note that when I say “giving of one’s self” I’m not talking about money. For one thing, money is really easy to give. Some of us have more to give than others, but most of us, when we give money, we give only what we can give without impacting our personal wants and desires. I can donate $20 to breast cancer research and nothing in my life will change – I won’t have to skip any meals or forego that pair of boots I really wanted to buy. But if I gave $2000 that would really put a crimp in my style. I’d be missing meals AND the pair of boots as well as my weekly trip to Target and probably the electric bill. But that’s all relative. The billionaire giving $200,000, although that is a pretty impressive chunk of change, isn’t impacting his life any more than I was when I gave $20. In order to be effective, I think giving has to impact us a little bit because it forces us to focus on doing something good for someone else PURELY for THEIR benefit and not our own. It isn’t about “bragging rights” so we can tell everyone what we did for so-and-so – if the focus of our giving is the personal satisfaction we’ll get by telling everyone how generous we are, we’ve missed the point entirely. Giving of one’s self forces us to focus on the other person, not on ourselves. When I worked with Van, the time I gave was focused completely on her – not on me. But in the end, it was a tremendously rewarding experience for me, not only because I met someone I grew to respect and truly care about, but also because it made me appreciate all I had. Which brings me to my final point…
4) Always focusing on the next way to “be happy” has a tendency to cause us to focus on what we don’t have instead of being grateful for what we do have. I’ve talked a lot about focus and it’s a word I’ve nearly worn out here, but it is really the crux of the whole discussion. If you are focused on the next thing to buy, you’re focused on what you don’t have. If you are focused on the next party, you’re focused on how you don’t feel right now the way you want to feel later. If you are focused on that trip, you are focused on how you aren’t where you wish you were. All of that focus on what you don’t have, how you don’t feel, where you aren’t robs you of the ability to be grateful for all you do have, the joy in how and where you are right now. One key to happiness is simply living with a sense of GRATITUDE. It has nothing to do with how much you have and everything to do with how much you appreciate what you do have. For an example of this, I need look no further than my elderly grandmother. Although her world has now shrunk to a small room in a nursing home, she is grateful for the years she had to live in a home she loved and the places she’s been able to travel throughout her life. Although her husband died 7 years ago, she is grateful for the years they had together and for the family she still has. She has all but lost her sight and can no longer do the crosswords and puzzles she loved so much, nor can she watch television or write letters, but she is grateful for the many years of joy she had doing those things. She has trouble hearing and her mind has weakened to a point where it is difficult for her to follow conversations much of the time, but she is grateful that until recently her mind was sharp and she was able to nurture friendships. She is often in pain and her body is failing her, but she is grateful for all the years of good health and all she was able to do. In spite of her difficulties, the losses she’s suffered, the pain that she is in, she never complains. She’s always just grateful.
Happiness is elusive to many, fleeting for most. It comes and goes with the seasons of our lives. Sometimes we're happy and sometimes we're not, it's as simple as that. But I don't believe we can ever attain happiness when we seek it as an end. Happiness comes to us when we live our lives well, when we care about others more than ourselves, when we make commitments and keep them and when we spend more time focused on bringing joy to others than taking it for ourselves. Most of all, happiness comes when we are grateful for all that we have in our lives. Our friends, our families, and our freedom.
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