My other half and I were having a talk this morning while I dropped him into work, he was explaining that all he wanted was to be happy, to which I replied, "Happiness requires a level of ignorance!" Thinking that would either (a) shut him up, or (b) escalate the talk to a row. He went for another response, "write a post on the blog about that", out of the car he hopped. So I thought about this statement, I looked at my two month old, wondered is he happy? He has very little self awareness of course, if he is hungry, wet, dirty or tired he's unhappy, but if he's not those things he's not happy, he will giggle if I kiss his tummy, but I don't know if that means he's happy.My two year old is upstairs now playing with her little friend, they are happy now, but in 20 minutes when I have to send her friend home she'll be distraught. Meanwhile my eldest is at a pool party, probably having a ball right now, he'll be tired and cranky when I pick him up!I'm wondering what happiness is? How do we define it? Is it a feeling of well being, is it the opposite of sadness, or is it just a catch all phrase? What does it mean when we say I just want to be happy? Is it a naive desire? Is it a childish phrase? What if the things that make us happy make other people unhappy, do we want happiness at all costs? How many of us are "happy"? How much of the time are these people happy for? So why did I say to my hubby I thought some ignorance was required to be happy, well, my daughter is having a ball now, if she thought about the impending separation from her mate she'd be miserable, or that her room is now a tip and she'll have to "help" me clean up (her happiness depends on my unhappiness in a way, Happy kids = Messy room + unhappy mum).
I asked my husband if he thought many people he knew were "happy", he agreed that they didn't appear to be, the older we get, the more people rely on us, the more pressures there are on our shoulders (in other words when we grow up) it's harder to be happy! Happiness to me is a sense of lightness, which I do experience daily, my baby smiling (or stopping crying when I pick him up), My son turning into a man , surprising me with his intelligence and kindness, my daughter's innocence and joy at the things I take for granted, spooning with my husband, eating a nice meal I've cooked for my family, making someone laugh, making someone proud,these things make me happy.
But I still don't understand, "I just want to be happy", I think it's impossible, "JUST" to be anything, I'd love to meet the person who is just happy, is ignorance bliss? With the availability of drugs to change your mood now of course it is possible to be happy all the time but is that happiness? Or just an absence of sadness?
Happiness has many levels, I think. I'd say I'm relatively happy...the things that make me unhappy are completely trivial. My family are pretty happy too, and I work hard to keep it that way. Maybe we're lucky, maybe I'm delusional. Maybe I just haven't had any wine tonight.
ReplyDeleteI would like to think I am happy, although my work mates constantly say I am grumpy, but grumpy makes me happy. Also having an 11 month old that gets so excited when I arrive home makes me happy. The 145 bus route makes me unhappy, but with my brand spanking new mobile with wifi I can get into silly peoples broadband connection if it aint password protected and blog from my phone while waiting for the afore mentioned bus, that makes me happy.
ReplyDeleteWhy my comments are so long yet I find it hard to write up new topics makes me unhappy. It is impossible to be consistently happy, but I am happy knowing this and thus savour every moment of happiness, life chucks at me.
BTW this post made me happy, sorry for the rant.
Being grumpy can make me happy to Sean! Nothing wrong with that.
ReplyDeleteStrangely being part of this and seeing how it's bringing people together into this little strange community makes me happy. Seeing how hard it's become to write on my own blog makes me sad.
You've made me think with this one MW. I know for sure I'm a happy person. In order to give that reference I'm trying to think of a time when I would describe myself as unhappy (as opposed to just thinking of the last time I just WAS unhappy which could involve getting raisins in my muesli or something trivial!)
ReplyDeleteI remember when I used to have a long commute to work and it involved getting my daughter up out of bed at the crack of dawn (like 3 hours before school started) in order to do that commute. I was unhappy then but changed the situation so that was sorted. That and when my mother died, I was incredibly unhappy for a long time but I'm not sure even then I would describe myself as an unhappy person. I'll stop ranting on now! You got me wondering today!
A very moving Post dear friends! Thank you for bringing it up MW. I would agree with you in that happiness embraces us with lightness and here is where ignorance comes to play: Ignoring the unimportant trivial, material aspects in life and having sense of awareness about the things that matter most: love, kindness, joy, sense of being alive…. and ahhh lightness – airy fairy but makes sense to me . Happy Day to you all!
ReplyDeleteWow, I'm delighted everyone has thought about my silly thought long enough to write something down, which has actually helped me put into words what I've been struggling with, it's your outlook isn't it? With my gothic past I guess I'm naturally a bit negative, shouldn't be, have a wonderful life, but I am at times. If I could be more like Frank and ignore the negative trivial things! Or polka, who should really be Perky! :-}
ReplyDeleteGimme a bottle of vino, you can call me whatever you want!
ReplyDeleteHumph. Start a frivolous group exercise and get almost no response. Midge opens here heart and yiz are all over her! Typical.
ReplyDeleteHi MW! I thought about this one earlier and I posted a comment, which then disappeared off the screen, grr, it was really profound and everything! Basically my friend started going out with a person she'd known for a few years. She said that with her previous boyfriend she had felt 'happy' most of the time but with the current guy she feels 'content'. I took this to be a bad thing, to me 'content' implies compromising, settling for, making do with. But she explained that happiness is a fleeting thing, it can come upon you in an instant but then be snatched away just as quickly if factors change (ie. boy says he loves you, you feel happy; boy fecks off to China and hooks up with Chinese slapper-wagon-face-from-hell, happiness dissipates), whereas being content is like long-lasting happiness, not so dependent on outside forces, more something internal. Its more of an overall feeling rather than a particular emotion at a particular time. So I think maybe when someone says 'I just want to be happy' what they actually mean to say is 'I just want to be content'. That was what I was going to post this morning when I felt happy. Since then I have spent my lunchtime traipsing around about 10 different shoe shops trying to find a pair of shoes that will fit my humungous feet and aren't made from dead animal skin, as the shoes Im wearing are actually about to fall apart, have had no luck and now think that happiness is: being oblivious to the fact that we are all going to die some day. Weird how mood changes your perspective on things!! ;)
ReplyDeleteSorry SL!! I'll go back to yours now, I'm just trying to think up something really juicy and humiliating, hahaha!
ReplyDelete/snort
ReplyDeleteSomeone, she has better legs than you do. Of *course* we're gonna answer hers.
I've awful legs.....but a great rack!
ReplyDeleteFitzy, the guy who disappeared to China was way too short, so you are much better off with him having a relationship with someone he's taller than!