happiness

1. Why do we care about happiness?

1 Jul 2021Posted in QuestionsTagged care about happiness, happiness, positive emotion, satisfaction1 Comment

Happiness is one out of many positive emotions. In Brené Brown’s list of core emotions, she lists good emotions such as belonging, empathy, excited, gratitude, curious, joy, love, and surprised. But even feelings that I don’t like can bring positive moments into my life: anger can lead to action; anxiety can lead to safety; grief comes from love.

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman mentions that we don’t really want to be happy–we want to be satisfied with our lives. Happiness can be fleeting, but satisfaction lasts a whole lot longer and is built from goals and hard work. We work and live more to be satisfied, not to be happy.

Yet in many conversations with others and in my own thought patterns, I am often dwelling on happiness. Am I happy? Is someone I love happy? But if happiness is fleeting, how is that a good measure of my life being in a positive space?

I felt happy yesterday. We went up into the mountains and I was canoeing around on a lake surrounded by evergreen trees, racing the sun as it slowly slipped behind the mountain. I assembled fishing poles for my children and watched the video Dillon had taken of the fish that almost landed in the canoe.

That was happy. But the happiness didn’t last forever. I can’t have moments like that my whole life–and I don’t want to. This morning, I sat and worked on studying and learning and writing–and those things don’t directly bring me happiness, but I like that I do them.

Lori Gottlieb mentions that people can change their life by changing the stories they tell themselves. So if I change my story so that I’m not always dwelling on happiness and searching after happiness, maybe I would become more satisfied with my life, more able to pursue what I really value.

Problems

22 Aug 2018Posted in inspirationTagged happiness, problems, workLeave a comment

I’m lighter when I’m lower, I’m higher when I’m heavy. (“Nico and the Niners,” Twenty One Pilots)

So there was a diagram in a book I just read (Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life) about how we respond to problems. We all have problems. But there were two ways to respond to problems: one is that you keep trying to be a better person and go forward to what you want to achieve in life and hold on to what you value. And the second one is that you run away from problems, and you hide so that they aren’t as hard, and you value that you want to not feel pain the most.

We get to choose our perspective, our attitudes, and what we do day after day. If we have goals for ourselves and are constantly trying to become better, our problems are going to be a lot different than when we just want all the problems to go away.

I was recently reading a post from a difficult time in my life–I was very busy with school and facing an uncertain future. And while I had to read hundreds of pages and write dozens of papers, all while trying to serve others and be a good daughter and friend, I found that I found a deep amount of happiness.

I am happy when I am pushing myself to do more with what I already have.

I do not always do that. Instead, I try to avoid the problems of tiredness and exhaustion and disappointment and all of that, and I find myself not pushing myself very hard some days. I say I can take a day off and watch TV. Or I can just check things online. I need a break.

I don’t need a break. I am more tired when I take naps and sit around all day. I am unhappier when I watch lots of television.

When I engage in lots of projects, when I go on adventures with my kids–when I choose to push myself to do more and do it better–then I find happiness.

It’s hard. Because I have to stop myself running away from the pain and tiredness of trying myself. But it’s worth it to try.

When we try to choose NOT to have problems, we end up with the problems that we hate the most–like depression, regret, and a wasted time.

When we choose to hold onto what we value, we often will find ourselves with the pain and problems of loving others, be engaged in good causes, having good work to do–and yes, sometimes we will be exhausted and hurting, but we will be heading upward to the place we need to be.

And God will help us do the work that we need to do. His way is not really harder–it’s happier. It’s better, for He provides a way even though the problems seems great. He will help us see simplicity in complicated problems, feel strength in weakness, and give us protection and safety in times that are hard. And even though following Him can seem difficult, it is always worth it.

11 Apr 2018Posted in essay, my lifeTagged difficulties, expectations, happiness, life, moving1 Comment

Happiness is not dependent on circumstance.

Every other time we’ve moved, we really wanted to move. We moved after months of job searching, or after living with my parents, or after living in places we didn’t like. But this last time, while we felt like it was time to move, we liked the life we had. I felt like I was part of a community that I didn’t really want to leave.

Some days, I miss my friends, schools, and my house. Our new life is frankly a whole lot harder: I’m homeschooling now, my husband works longer hours, I’m really far away from town, and I gave up my green yard for a yard full of cactus and red sand. My house is smaller too. It’s taking some adjustment.

But I realized something one morning: my happiness is not dependent on my circumstance. Which means that I don’t have to like where I live to be happy. Happiness does not wait for life to be perfect–it can be here now.

Sometimes I fall into a trap of thinking that I have to see the good in everything. And sometimes, things are just hard and unpleasant. And I can accept that. It’s part of life.

I don’t have to love the paint color on my walls or enjoy my rather narrow kitchen. I don’t have to love every minute of spending all day, every day with my four children. There are things about my life right now that I don’t like and I don’t want. And that’s okay. Because I can still be happy.

It’s takes a lot of pressure off myself to say that I don’t have to enjoy every minute and I don’t have to like every single part of my life–and to then realize that I can still wake up smiling.

There are so many good things, and the good things are enough to outweigh everything lacking. And even when the difficult and hard things are completely overwhelming–it’s okay to cry. I don’t have to be happy all the time to have a happy life.

It’s okay to struggle. It’s okay to dream of something better. It’s okay to feel whatever I’m feeling.

Sometimes I beat myself up for things that I do that aren’t even wrong. I expect myself to fit in a weird, impossible framework that I built up in my own mind. The perfection that I think I want isn’t practical–and it doesn’t exist.

Life isn’t perfect. Life isn’t fair. Life will always be sort of hard. That’s what life is–a roller coaster of ups and downs as circumstances constantly change.

So happiness does not need to wait–it can happen right now. Even if my house is a wreck. Even if I’m really tired. Even if I didn’t accomplish anything in a day. Even if I don’t particularly like where I live. Even if my life looks so different from I ever imagined–and I still wish for dreams that I’m not sure will ever happen.

My happiness isn’t dependent on any of that. Happiness comes not in the accomplishment, but in the trying.

So I’m feeling happy. Not because my life somehow got easier, but because I decided to stop expecting the impossible.