Happiness

Sometimes on a Sunday morning, heaven is being able to lie in bed and enjoy the laziness of knowing you don't have to be anywhere.   Often on those mornings, my hubby and I will read the papers on our iPhones, feet touching under the covers but mostly ignoring each other, listening to the kids and dogs downstairs making craziness.  Sometimes we'll plan out our week and compare schedules, making sure all the "have tos" are covered.  This morning we got in a conversation about the meaning of happiness.  

Although the subject is light, the conversation got kinda heavy.  Happiness is the only goal, but it can be hard to define, let alone achieve.  And when one has a family, happiness is tied up in the well-being, the states of others.  As Martha Washington is credited with saying, "The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances."  Still, there is a connection between circumstance and happiness, and in the dispositions of those we love. The Dalai Lama also includes the concept of circumstance in defining happiness, offering that, "Happiness is determined more by the state of one's mind than by one's external conditions, circumstances or events- at least once one's basic survival needs are met."  With this focus, conditions are countered by a state of mind, by feelings of peace and contentment.  Although the circumstances influence, the response is determined by the individual.

Many who wax philosophical put the burden of happiness squarely onto the individual. Bette Davis, who had a lot to be happy about, said, "You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation."  I really like this idea, that's its not about "choosing your attitude" but about choosing your expectations.  And not just by lowering them, but my making them real and relevent.  This same idea is at the basis of Hugh Downs' definition: "A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes."

Dictionary definitions don't do it justice:   a state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn.).  Nor do clincial definitions:  both positive feelings (such as ecstasy and comfort) and positive activities that have no feeling component at all (such as absorption and engagement) (from Dr. Martin Seligman).   Happiness is one of those concepts, like beauty or goodness, that you know when you see, but can't really define.  

I think I'm a happy person.  I feel contentment with my life, my heart flip-flops when my man walks in the room, I  not only love my kids I also like them, I enjoy my job and my coworkers; my life is good.  This doesn't mean I'm a pollyanna, or that I don't get frustrated or have aspects of my self and life that I'd like to change.  It does mean that I'm in a good place.

The happiness of loved ones is another aspect of all this, and it's probably where I struggle the most.  Sometimes I take it personally when someone I care about is unhappy, even when I know I shouldn't.  Sometimes, I let the attitudes of others shake me.  I have to realize that for some people, discontent is what drives them.  It doesn't mean they're not happy; it might mean their definition is different than mine.

Because it's all about the definition, right?  If so, Mark Twain wrote that, "Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination...No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those." For these people, is happiness found in clarity or acceptance?  Maybe it's as Ralph Waldo said, "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."   Maybe happiness is not thinking to much, choosing instead to just be.