Simple reminders should often be the most desired.
I heard it once said that when told something we already know, or an ideology we are already familiar with, we tend to respond – whether verbally or internally – in one of two ways. The novice, or even perhaps the unwise, says “Yes, I know that already.” The master says “Thank you for the reminder.”
Jordan and I were admittedly watching an episode of Frasier the other day. Perhaps the snootiness should be too much to endure, but we have found ourselves rather amused by it all nonetheless. The episode itself was a simple one, Frasier and his brother Niles enjoying a cup of coffee at Cafe Nervosa, as they often would, although this episode didn’t maneuver from one point in time to another, as these scenes often do. Rather the storyline hinged upon Niles trying to hear his brother’s response to the question “Are you happy?”
That’s the extent to which I’ll reference the dated sitcom before you judge me too severely, but Jordan and I shared some thoughts over the question once the singing about scrambled eggs came to an end.
To be happy.
Happiness is surely something we all desire. We have a song about it that Pharrell got rather poignantly stuck in our heads for a good year. We have multiple emojis intended to engage our expression of it. We even have a treasured historical document that encourages our pursuit of it.
Although happiness was never intended to be felt, even known, at all points in time. For to work to that end is to fall helplessly into a void of deep disappointment and even vain pursuit.
Happiness can come authentically and cheaply without much regard for the effortless pendulum swing. It can come as a result of hard work or a result of pure luck and think nothing of it. Happiness can present itself in a wide range, surely, for I am marvelously happy with a well crafted cup of coffee, but vastly more happy dancing to Ray Charles with my children in our living room. Happiness can be a rush of instantaneous pleasure, such as when I opened up a large box of Breyer horses from my childhood that our girls’ played with for hours only days ago, to not even touch them today. Or such as my buying some clothes only an hour or so ago at some marvelous summer clearance sale prices. I felt a twinge of happiness, and not just because I loved the price tags, but because I hadn’t bought an article of clothing since December and the high of consumerism is rather enjoyable. Yet I found myself even far happier when sipping a glass of wine, pouring into conversation and a decedent chocolate mousse with my husband in celebration of twelve years of marriage.
Can it not always be so? Does not every occasion call for happiness and should not every life expect, or at least work, to fulfill that answer affirmatively?
Are you happy? A resounding YES please.
Except we know, even if we overindulge in drink when lacking it or allocate an unnecessary amount towards consumerism to perpetuate it, that happiness can depart as quickly as it came. We know this, yet we act as though desperate to ensure such is not the case. We look to secure our happiness, even in the midst of adversity, with the intentionality to keep unhappy moments as blips in a long line of happiness, rather than acknowledging this ebbing and flowing curve of which life is more undoubtedly consistent.
Seems a bit unfair though, doesn’t it? To seem as though mandated to pursue happiness, only to be reminded time and time again that such a pursuit will come back void, at least some of the time, and for some, more often than not.
Do we simply acknowledge then this great gap of pursuit and attainment, and merely hope that the happy will outweigh the unhappy? Or is there perhaps a pursuit that truly can come at all moments, and so would stand a better goal to attain?
My mother-in-law shared a conversation with me that she had with Eve one day when they were in the park. A young girl was riding by on her scooter, over which Eve ooed and awed. She was rather smitten with this pink handled board on wheels. Something about coasting with only an occasional push apparently looked rather alluring, and the young girl seemed to be having a joyous time, and so even at a young age, Eve felt she wanted to replicate that experience for her personal pleasure. Although when asked outright if she wanted one, Eve looked at her grandmother and said “That’s okay, Gigi, I have plenty.”
Naturally in that moment my mama-pride perhaps beamed a little, although I can assure you that we have had several requests for things since then, to which repeated conversations of gratitude have needed to take place. A good practice for myself as well. Though the heart of her response in that particular moment, and every conversation we have had since then around our way of approaching happiness, has been countered with something altogether far less natural and requiring far more diligence.
Contentment.
The thing about contentment, however, is that we have somehow conditioned it to feel much like compromise. You can’t get what you actually want, and so you have to settle for second best. That would be true, except for the realization that happiness at all times is not actually feasible, as we have already discovered. Not only is such a feat not feasible, but not even ideal. While happiness is quite lovely and certainly holds its place as a worthy state of being, it is a state, if left in for too long, can keep our relationships shallow, our character undeveloped, and our self entitlement overabundant.
What would feel like a worthwhile goal of a happy pursuing life, would actually be to love ourselves too little.
While happiness hinges on our circumstances and acquisitions, contentment hinges on our disposition. While happiness gives way to self fulfillment, contentment actually nourishes the root of our character, which is to tend to ourselves far more lovingly.
Like anything worth pursuing, the effort required is by no means minimal, although to maintain happiness is just as demanding, and meanwhile inevitably prone to disruption, so regardless, we are in good company. Though the approach is far different, and Eve showed us rather well how to engage in a spirit of contentment.
Gratitude.
This is where a position of “master” is determined by your response (and mine).
We have all heard this before, and yet to put gratitude into practice on a daily basis is strangely difficult. especially when we find there is so much we have yet to hold onto that could make us happy.
Though when we do immerse ourselves in thanksgiving, well beyond the holiday itself, we begin to cultivate an underlying attitude of contentment that sustains itself among the range of our emotions. Whether happy, sad, angry, or hurt we can still sit deeply content. As though we have secured an anchor embedded into the sand or roots intertwined beneath the earth, no matter a sweetly sunny and blue skies sort of day, or succumbing to a luminous shadow of dark clouds and drenching rains.
The threats to happiness do not now seem to pose as tumultuous a danger, for at last we are pursuing what does not hinge on their passing.
Here’s the fun twist. Ironically I have found that those times in life that I have been most content, are simultaneously the moments I have most often felt just plain happy. And so I find that the “happy life” I longed for all along was experienced more often once I learned to look for it elsewhere.
EXPOSITION: Are you happy? Scratch that. Are you content? Better yet. Are you thankful?
RISE: Take the position of the master. Pursue daily, better yet, hourly, gratitude. There you will find that contentment is a far more reasonable pursuit than happiness.
DENOUEMENT: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…”
(Solomon continues on with the point of life in the book of Ecclesiastes if you’re up for an intriguing, hopeless turned hope filled read.)