Happiness

Every time I get sick I try to remember if I really appreciated being well before this affliction kicked in. Usually the answer is - not nearly enough and damnit I will appreciate it heaps more when I get better! This time the answer is - yes. Yes I did. I have been very happy recently, and I've been counting each blessing as I've realised it exists.

The strange thing about being happy recently is that I've been reading dystopian novels. I dropped out of uni (don't worry I have two degrees, two certificates, a graduate diploma and three casual jobs) and immediately started spending my spare time reading. First I read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, on the recommendation of my flatmate. Good book - basically a feminist 1984. I found this book stirring. Mainly this is because it, being dystopian, took the time to reflect on what happiness once was. Twice in the book the protagonist reflects on the impossibility of knowing before this all happened, that she was actually happy. She asks of her and her partner of the former time: "How were we to know we were happy, even then?" As things do - this got me thinking - and I realised that I was happy. I am happy. I don't want to realise this later - I want to know it now. How many other times have I been happy and not realised until later? Probably too many! I am so grateful to now realise this at the time, so I can truly appreciate everything I have! I encourage others to ask yourself, now, am I happy? If you are not - change something. If you are - embrace it! This is as good as it gets and this is good enough!

Some may be wondering - how can I be happy when I know there is so much wrong with the world? I am happy in spite of it. Those wrongs are there - and me being upset about them is not going to make them go away. I'm doing the things I can to work towards making some of them go away, and I'm enjoying all the wonderful things life has to offer at the same time. I have amazing friends, beautiful family, intriguing and lovely flatmates, a job that I love, a way of life that I enjoy, and a whole lot of other little details that combine to make me happy. I appreciate those things Right Now. I am an idealist so I realise there are many things that can be better - but in spite of those things I am incredibly grateful for where I am and how I am able to be here. I focus on the good while keeping the bad in mind as a safety measure. The balance feels right.

On that page, the next book I read was one I'd meant to read for years - Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Another depressing but stirring book. The reason this book got me thinking further about happiness is that it poses the very question - what makes us happy? Are we happy with what we are conditioned to be happy with? Was I born and trained up as a Delta Minus so therefore I will be happy with a menial and meaningless job and limited personal freedoms? Was I born and trained up as an Alpha Plus so capable of questioning my lot in life and knowing it is even possible to question things? Is ignorance really bliss? Is it better - if you have the capacity to know - to choose not to, in order to be happy with your life? At last, for me, I think the answer is NO. A big resounding NO. We can know that there are many horrors in the world, and still be happy. There is no point feeling all the guilt and the shame of all of the problems, even those that we in part have contributed to. That will just depress us and paralyze us. There is plenty of point in seeing it for what it all is - a product of our conditioning and our positions in life - and working with it as best we can while appreciating what we do have that makes us individually fulfilled. I feel okay with knowing that I am incredibly privileged and am doing my best to appreciate that.

I don't want to look at myself deeper into the almost certainly dystopian future and realise I was once happy. I am happy to realise that now. I don't want to decide I can't be happy because the world has so many problems. I want to be happy anyway. I may as well feel it now - as now is all we have. xx

This video "Brené Brown at TEDxHouston" may, in part, explain why I am happy - better than this whole post.