Reflections: The state of happiness

While going through a season of what many may consider extremely unhappy events, “unfortunate” as I recently heard it described; reading about happiness in a philosophical sense has been both amusing and eye opening. 

In the last several weeks, my family has dealt with illness that's maneuvered its way through each of us, a car accident, and the recent information that we are having to find a different location to live. As a mom of 2, balancing work, pursuing my Masters, and all the things we know life brings, saying these situations are “unhappy” incidents would be putting it lightly.

 

I think when we consider the question, ‘what is happiness?’, we also need to consider ‘how do we deal with/manage/handle unhappiness’. I am an introvert at heart. Typically when life presents itself with an overwhelming amount of difficult circumstances that are out of my control, in true introverted fashion, I pull inward. This was not always the case, however, over the years what I have found for myself, to remain in a state of positivity, perhaps not happy in the moment, but positivity, I must draw inward to protect my mind, peace, and family. What this does is allow me to not overextend myself  when I am already being extended, and gives me the opportunity of control. I am unable to show up in a meaningful way if I have absolutely nothing to extend out to others. So it is important to my sense of happiness, when challenges such as this season I am in arise, that I remain true to myself rather than strive to appear happy for the sake of societal norms. 

I feel the way in which we have conditioned what happiness is, limits us from truly experiencing it. I know that once these circumstances come to pass, I will be happy with myself for sitting in the discomfort and pushing through, rather than ignoring the discomfort. ‘Happiness isn't the absence of problems. It's the ability to deal with them. Feeling sad after hardships or a challenging decision doesn't mean it was the wrong decision or that circumstance was in itself wrong.’

Chapter 7 and chapter 8 of Haybron’s book may be my favorite. Chapter 7, Getting outside of oneself: virtue and meaning, talks about virtuous characteristics and prioritizing virtue. I don’t feel we do this enough. Rather, we don’t consciously teach this and act on that teaching. There is ‘acting bad’, as the chapter puts it, for the sake of acting bad; then, there is dispensing negativity and hate for the sake of creating misery in others, due to one’s own misery. I think this happens far too often. We strive for the pursuit of happiness, on the conditions of someone else's happiness, while distributing increments of misery and unhappiness until those conditions are met. It would have been easier, perhaps, for me to release the unsettling feelings of discomfort and frustration I have been feeling onto those around me simply to minimize whatever sense of happiness they may have been feeling because my current circumstances do not line up with this idea of happiness that I’ve been instructed to pursue. I disagree. Rather, I refuse. I have found over the years, the happiness in my life is to live in a virtuous manner. To extend kindness and compassion even if I may not be receiving it. I do believe that everyone has ‘a right to be happy’, (happy) which is debatably subjective. Therefore, my happiness or unhappiness does not dictate how I conduct myself to others. 

I believe that happiness is deeper than what we acquire or have. It is something that we carry already within ourselves. Children are born having no sense of the world around them. Already carrying a whole host of emotions within them. Joy and happiness being of them. They have yet to be instructed and conformed to the ideas of what happiness is or what you need to gain in order to achieve it. It’s simply….there. Freely to give away. I think that remains in us as we age. We simply harbor it rather than freely express it and give to others. I read a quote that said, “we are often unhappy and stressed not because we are doing too much or have too much, but because we are not practicing what innate brings us joy and fulfillment on a deeper level.” I think that joy and fulfillment begins with a connection with others. Having the ability to genuinely connect with others, not the ability to practice using others and objects for our own sake. Early in the book Haybron emphasizes,“happiness is not simply pursued at the individual level. How happy we are depends very strongly on the people around us and the kind of society we inhabit” (p. 13). I don’t believe he is talking about the use of people around us, which I feel we do now. I believe he is considering people and society in terms of community, conversation, village, and support that creates the happiness he is suggesting. 

Lastly, Haybron touches on the emotional state theory of well being. This theory is broader than simply feeling happiness. Attunement is a mental state characterized by the kind of emotional evaluation of one’s life of being at peace with one’s self. Coming full circle here, these past few months, I had to become at peace with myself, where I am at, and what is happening around me, so that I could collect my thoughts and emotions and realize that despite all that is happening, I am (surprisingly) happy. I believe happiness is a state of mind rather than a state of having.  A state of self reflection. A state of understanding. A state of altruism.