like a fish needs a bicycle...

on happiness

so today, delara and i were discussing the nature of happiness. she and i have quite a few personality traits in common, so we can often identify on things like this. here are some things we touched on...

* we sometimes feel as if happiness is something we have to earn, rather than a state of being that we're always entitled to live in.

* sacrifice and hard work are not only important, they must be inherent in every aspect of life, otherwise we can't be happy and at peace.

* complete satisfaction or happiness is often not possible, and compromise is required in many aspects of life. consequently, we should somehow be happy with a lesser version of some reality that we had envisioned.

these are all interesting thoughts to me. it is especially interesting that, consciously, we may know these things aren't really true, but they are nevertheless operative--at least sometimes.

personally, i'm generally happy. in fact, people are sometimes surprised at how happy and smiley i almost always am. i don't know if i was always that way, but i feel like i grew a lot through the turbulence of adolescence... sometime in high school, my outlook changed, and i learned how to be a happy person, pretty much all the time. of course bad things happen and i have my tests, but i'm grateful that i seem to maintain a baseline level of happiness. i really feel like it's not a destination, but a mode of transport in life, and that's really nice.

and yet, i often feel like i still have ingrained ontological notions akin to the ones mentioned above... the necessity of constantly exerting myself, perpetually working hard and sacrificing, always having to earn things in life, not feeling deserving of a lot of things, not allowing myself all (or any) of what i would like or would aspire to. these thoughts manifest themselves at certain predictable times...

for instance, if i do something absent-minded or stupid, i find myself feeling undisciplined, mentally lax, or somehow undeserving of all the wonderful people and things i've been blessed with in life. though i'm still happy, as i always am, i can be really bothered by such things--perhaps disproportionately so, or at least more than the average person would be. actually, i did a few absent-minded/stupid things today, and i found myself experiencing these feelings. though i felt better soon enough and my self-criticism doesn't usually inhibit my abilities or interactions in any appreciable way, i can't help but think it's bad for my spirit to feel that way about myself...

in praying and meditating and truly reflecting on ways to improve myself, i wonder about what reactions and what courses of action are healthy and productive. perhaps my happiness would be better served in the long-run if i didn't always have such rigid notions of what i'm supposed to be and what i'm supposed to do.

i don't really have answers to any of this, and i'm not necessarily looking for them. just kind of musing, really... but i would appreciate hearing thoughts on this, if y'all would like to share them. lacking real closure, then, i'll just end this entry with some quotations from the bahá'í writings that seem especially relevant...

Happy are they who act; happy are they who understand; happy the man that hath clung unto the truth, detached from all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth.
~Bahá'u'lláh

Happy are the fair-minded.
~Bahá'u'lláh

Anybody can be happy in the state of comfort, ease, health, success, pleasure and joy; but if one will be happy and contented in the time of trouble, hardship and prevailing disease, it is the proof of nobility.
~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

Happy are those who spend their days in gaining knowledge, in discovering the secrets of nature, and in penetrating the subtleties of pure truth!
~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?
~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

Posted by naseem at July 7, 2005 12:40 AM