Happiness Is a Strange Thing

How we misinterpret the thing everyone claims to want

I am interested in words, what they mean, and what we think they mean. Don’t worry, I am not one who protests over the slightest deviation from the official dictionary offering of whatever term. People like that exist, in case you have never encountered one. Have you found yourself in a situation where the vocabulary police correct something you have said?

It is quite the opposite with me, actually. It is much more important to examine real-world interpretations of words than worrying precisely what a word is supposed to represent. Those people who call the shots on dictionaries have to attune their works to the whims and trends of the populace. Therefore, meanings exist prior to definitions instead of the other way around.

People determine how words are used. By that word people, I refer to the masses of regular folks. Human beings, as an outcome of thousands of small decisions, informally vote on the interpretations of language.

In addition to that, it is widely recognized that vocabularies evolve over time. If you have ever read, for example, a seventeenth-century letter, then you need no further proof of my claims. Some words go extinct, like most living things have. That word evolve is right on the money in this case, because language adapts slowly but steadily much like the world of animals.

For our purpose now, I want to contend with the word happiness, and all those interpretations of this overused word. Just the fact that we throw it out in conversations, and through our keystrokes, so often, makes the word an elemental thing to decipher and dwell on. When we talk about being happy, or not being so, we should know what our own words mean.

As a frequent attendee of various mental health gatherings, I can declare that happiness is near the top of the list of subjects, most of the time. It is undeniably one of the cornerstones of any situation, conversation, group, or written work that leans toward the direction of mental health or self-care.

How many times have we heard a person utter that finding happiness is superior to any desires for material riches? Most of the time, when human beings are challenged to choose either some version of peace-of-mind or wealth, they quickly confirm the former as unquestionably better. A man or woman might even become a little indignant, as if the proposition itself hints that he or she is a selfish human being. “Of course I am not driven by the lust for possessions and money,” someone might recite in their head.

Truthful or not when put to the test, I find that people do not comprehend the implications and causes of happiness. We are confused, but either we are not cognizant of this deficiency, or are in denial about misrepresenting what happiness is. Basically, that thing most of us advertise the desire to attain is one of least understood features of the core motivations that propel human behavior.

It would be easy to repeat something along the lines of: happiness is different for every individual. I could take that way out, and not think very hard, but the statement means little to nothing. More to my position, I do not think folks are primarily searching for happiness at all, despite what is said and believed. Just to add, people tend to reject happiness when it is actually achieved.

Happiness is one of those words everyone knows but no one can explain. It is common knowledge that we cannot define. Or, happiness signifies so much to be everything — which is the same as saying it is meaningless.

Oh, certainly many people have done the heavy lifting, and through the trials of life or by just sincere introspection, live by their own happiness creed. This is true, but I think the exception instead of the rule.

Far too often, it is really domination disguised as happiness that is the true aim. This occurs on every level large and small. It is born out of undue pressures to succeed, emotional abuse, and lack of self-esteem that over time matures and looks like perfectionism, workaholic-ism, and can sadly turn into addiction and other unhelpful stuff. I am saying that what one thinks he or she is doing is the all-American pursuit of happiness, but is really the desire for status and most of all: the want to control.

The seekers of control always end up in roughly the same circumstances. It is a place of disappointment and/or disaster, because a little control begets the yearning for more, and ultimately, absolute domination cannot be achieved by mortal man. It should not be, either. Also, the apparatus of power will always be turned against its creator.

In many instances, it is pleasure and the absence of pain that we label as happiness. Yet, this is still the will to dominate with few differences at all. We hope to acquire the objects of desire, whether things or people, and do so with the secret hope it all will cover for and blot out whatever pain has been accumulated. Hopefully, none of us will end up like Charles Foster Kane in the great Citizen Kane, who longs for childhood things atop his lonely, but fabulously wealthy empire.

That impulse to do more, get more, own more, win the most, and constantly level-up, as if a player in a game, are just polished outgrowths of the need to dominate everything. As you can gather, all I have described are not pleasant or sustainable prescriptions for living, in this author’s estimation.

I do not want to define happiness, at least not in the dictionary sense, as that is often done with mixed results. I know what it is not and have reasoned out why most people do not acquire or even chase real happiness. It is too difficult.

The most fulfilling accruements of this existence are things that cannot be won only once. If someone takes this approach, this unfortunate person will learn how what is won becomes easily lost. No, these precious gifts must be earned over and over rather consistently, until the last of our days.

A rare and real friend, a spouse, an ideal work environment, respect, and love itself — these are what come to mind as the prizes that really matter. They are not treasures that come bestowed upon us after the end of a long journey— as in a classic story. Instead, the best things are always contested, constantly in doubt, and never owed to anyone in spite of the great labors spent to attain them. I find this conclusion enlightening yet bittersweet. It is enticing to think that a ceremony of marriage seals one’s fate, and it is alluring to blindly believe in those vows, but you must resist. A ceremony is the pomp and circumstance of a thing but never the heart of the thing.

Something closer to realized happiness demands vigilance, because specialness is by definition unusual and selective. To raise ourselves up like a monument to reach greatness, we increase the tension of the ropes, or more pressure is put on the machinery, making it more likely something goes awry to send us tumbling downward. Regular attention is required.

Happiness does not have to equal to a constant stream of headache free days. Actually, my general notions of that word is likely to cause more responsibilities and work than if one refuses to take on the challenge. I did not for the longest time.

It is easier in the short term to pretend we do not need that food the feeds the soul — the heart of the thing called life. The road with few entanglements and stressors is like eating those yummy but empty-calorie treats. They offer a temporary diversion but are not the nourishment that our entire being cries out for.

When it comes to the professional or personal, some folks run from scenarios where happiness is all around them. It means more work and worry, with a larger number of people and things that monopolize a person. I am not only referring to being promoted in some job that brings more pressure.

In addition to that, any life role of any consequence whatsoever causes other humans to rely on you, and that entails fewer opportunities and places to hide. Add to the mix any bonds that one makes, that the vast majority of people need, then that itself is a leadership requirement. A relationship should include both people being leaders, albeit not exactly in the same ways.

It might be that some of us find human populations to be irritants to escape from, and dream of a lifestyle away from the daily hustle, competition for resources, and most people. This has been done, and probably successfully here and there. This takes difficult labor, as well.

Dear reader, I am thinking of the painstaking self-reflection, you could probably use the word meditation, someone must undergo to make an alternative lifestyle reality. Think living alone or nearly alone on an island, as an example. A person has to reach some level of radical self-acceptance and reliance, in order to have any chance at all.

The difference between stoic simplicity and a wild-eyed vagrant is completing the inner contemplation to accept yourself and the world as it exists. Such a person can only find happiness through acknowledging the links between all living things in a very spiritual sense instead of the person-to-person interactions that are customary.

Acceptance. This is a difficult emotional state for most. It is not the default setting, which is competition in order to secure domination. Only taking things as they are can one begin to see the real avenues available to change things for the better.

So, happiness is not domination, pleasure, the absence of pain, or isolation. I believe happiness to be contentment with how things are going in your life, satisfaction with the direction you are moving, approval of what worthy goals you are working toward, and the security of believing you are giving your best effort to nurture those close relationships. These are all parts of an ongoing process.

So, happiness remains a strange word and not a sufficient one for all that human beings try to attach to it.