I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately. What our society values as a means of happiness, and how happiness fits into our daily lives. I’ve realized that for the first time in my life, I feel truly happy.
I’ve had a very charmed life and I’m grateful for the upbringing I’ve had. I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that I’ve grown up with quite a bit of privilege. If nothing else was indicative of that, then the sheer fact that I’ve always used an iPhone is. I’ve also been fortunate enough to receive quality education all my life and I’ve never known hunger or real oppression. I’ve lived a really good life, and I’ve always been content with it.
However, right now I feel truly happy with my life. I’m doing work that I love, and I feel like I have a really solid friend group, and overall I’m loving my twenties (yes I realize that I’m only 1 year in but…. just… shhhhh let me live)
My generation puts a lot of conditions on happiness, always saying that “we’ll be happy once…” fill in the blank. I know too many of my friends who believe that a husband or wife will make them happy, or a degree (or three). A person can’t make you happy, and a piece of paper certainly can’t make you happy. At least a person can tell jokes, I’ve never met a piece of paper that can make me laugh.
Don’t get me wrong, I too want to get married. It seems like a lot of fun, and the tax benefits are a great perk. However, if we place the onus of responsibility of our happiness on another person than we’ll always be let down. No one truly knows and understands us more than ourselves. We’re the only one who has spent every single minute of our lives with us. Someone can get damn well close, and they’re the one’s we should be marrying, but they’ll never know us 100%. They’re real job is to make life more bearable by sharing in the moments with us.
Putting our happiness on someone else is also unfair because we’ll never truly be satisfied with them and ultimately it will cause deeper problems in an otherwise healthy relationship.
The same thing goes with accomplishments. Telling ourselves that we won’t be happy until we’ve accomplished something is only setting ourselves up for failure. When we do that, we’ll never be truly satisfied. We’ll always want more. “Let me go and get my Ph.D, and then I’ll be good.” “I’ve always wanted 3 kids not just 2” When we place our happiness on accomplishments, we never feel like we’ve reached them.
Instead, we need to find value in the current situation. Everyday I wake up is a good day because I’ve got my health and my support system. Every day at work is a good day because I’m doing something I love and I’m getting money to pay for a great education from a school that I love. Everything has a bright side, and everything in life has a purpose.
Life is too short to keep putting off happiness. We never know when our last day will be, so why waste this time telling ourselves that we’ll be happy later. Let’s be happy now.
