Thoughts on Happiness

I have been thinking quite a lot about happiness recently. This is, I suppose, an inevitable result of feeling unhappy with a couple of life situations that are, at the moment, completely out of my control. Neither of these things are things I can change, but I have allowed the two to shove me down a spiral of sadness and misery. I am working at letting myself be happy regardless, but it’s more difficult than it seems.

In addition to this situational thinking, The Dancing Newt and Schmetterling and Eric Weiner and, unwittingly, my roommate have all written, said, or done something recently that set me thinking even more about happiness. (This post of Schmetterling’s actually came when I thought I had ended said thinking riff. And set me thinking all over again. But more on what he said later.)

Anyway, the thinking started last Friday, when my roommate came home from a swing dance date as giddy as I’ve ever seen her. And she’s a happy person. Anyway, she wanted to keep dancing around and before I knew it, our other roommate had started playing the song “Happiness” from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

And that started it all: the premise of the song “Happiness” is that happiness comes as a result of small things. Charlie Brown starts off the song, because he’s ecstatic to learn that the redheaded girl chews her pencil, and that means she’s human! (Personally, I think chewing pencils is a bad, nervous habit. One I have. And am reminded of when I see anyone else chewing a pencil.) The song goes on to list several small things as happiness: pizza with sausage, learning to whistle, five different crayons, tying your shoes, even in being alone now and then. (My favorite line, by far, that: I find myself craving solitude sometimes, and need a certain amount of “me” time to be sane and content) It culminates in the idea that happiness is anything an individual loves—whether it’s people, food, or a place. While I found this a good idea, I found the opposite eqeually true: even things people love are known to cause disappointment.

Speaking of place, Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World continued to spur on my preponderance of ponderings about happiness as I read it last week. Weiner set out to explore the reverse of the maxim that happiness isn’t a state; it’s a state of mind. There is a whole branch of psychology devoted to studying happiness, and they have a way of ranking places based on how they rank on a happiness scale. (The United States, incidentally, does not rank as high on the happy scale as I expected)

He explored places like Bhutan, where they try to measure Gross National Happiness—because the government thinks it a better indicator than GDP. (Incidentally, happiness as policy connected to this post by my Newt-y friend.) He visited Iceland, a remarkably happy place, due in part to its creativity and its attitude that its citizens are allowed to fail and change. Indeed, failure and change are expected. And he visited Moldova, where it was miserable—but the fruits and vegetables were fresh. In the end, he didn’t try to make any broad sweeping conclusions about happiness: people who were happy were happy for variable reasons. (Which means, I suppose, that Tolstoy got it wrong. All happy families are not alike.)

But it led me to re-think part of the premise I’ve been thinking of recently—namely, that I would be happier if I were someplace other than where I am. (Although I must admit that after reading about Moldova, I think I’d feel happier coming home. Just by virtue of comparison.)

I thought I’d exhausted my thoughts about happiness, especially since I had yet to reach a conclusion about how to force myself to be happier (NEWS FLASH: This just in. I discovered that happiness isn’t something I can force on myself, although I can pursue people and things that have been known to help me be happy before.).

And then Schmetterling’s post came. I already linked it, so use that link. Or maybe you already have. Anyhow, his posted started me thinking. Primarily about Billy Joel’s “Vienna.” He quoted the latter half of this line: “You know that when the truth is told, you can get what you want or you can just get old” and I thought about that and this line: “Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true.”

At first I thought the dreaming line stood as stark contradiction to the whole song. Then I realized: it doesn’t. The song is advocating slowing down, but not giving up. If you only imagine all of your dreams will come true, they won’t. But some dreams come more easily than others, and rushing around does not always help us to fulfill our dreams.

“Vienna” is replete with admonitions to slow down, and (thanks to Schmetterling for the post that triggered the epiphany) I realize far too often I equate happiness with being so occupied and stressed, I am practically frenetic. And while exact and perfect happiness doesn’t come from slowing down, it does help to bring a little mellowness to my demeanor.

Besides, I’ve made a discovery: I don’t think we’re intended to be happy all the time. Otherwise, it would be void of any meaning as an emotion. Just as smiles would lose their power if they were the law.