Happiness Is Not A Goal

One of my favorite books in high school was The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I’m not sure if many of you have read that book, but without giving too much context, there is a character named May who gets very depressed when learning about the world's misfortunes. Watching the news can be triggering for her, because every tragedy feels like it personally happened to her.

Recently, I think a lot of us feel like May, because every time we turn on a device, the news bombards us with stories. Last week I wrote about the slave trade in Libya, and in the week since I wrote that, I can name ten other concerning news stories. 

Today, I decided to take a step away from all the heavy news, and focus on something that has been missing from the forefront of our lives. Happiness. In our society, I often think of happy as a goal. A place you can reach if you finish your homework, clean the kitchen, or big things, like getting a new job, or being in a relationship. Happiness as a concept is something we work at. If you do all the right things you will be happy. If Trump gets impeached, we will all be happy. If the news were less sad, I could be happy. 

But, what happens when the things that are supposed to make you happy, don't? What happens if Trump gets impeached and Mike Pence becomes President? That sure wouldn't make me happy. What if you get that new job and it's not bad, but you're not necessarily happy? Or you put all this effort into getting the relationship and you get in it and something is just...off? If bad things keep happening, do we ever reach happiness? 

Usually when we get disappointed in something that was supposed to work, we set another goal, another acheivable place to be. I am not happy in this relationship like I thought I would be, so when I get out of it, I will be happy. Once I get a better job, I will be happy. It makes sense. You don’t give up, you try again. And for the most part this kind of works for us. 

But, an idea I read a few months ago really stuck with me. I was reading an article and someone wrote that happiness is not a goal or place. It's an activity. One that you can opt in and opt out of. When I thought about it like that, it changed what happiness looked like. Yes, I can still have goals, but they don't have the responsibility of making me happy. Instead they're to make me content, or stable, or responsible. Things like that.

Happiness is a mood. Just like sadness, anger, or indifference. Moods come and go and shift repeatedly. You can be sad one minute and then ten minutes later, after someone tells a joke, you are happy. That is normal! Happiness is not a place I will reach once I make six figures, because the sad truth is that there is a possibility that I will not be happy once I reach that. But if I look at happiness as an activity, well, it almost feels as if I have more opportunities to be happy. Because I am no longer focusing on a major goal, instead I am experiencing each moment. 

I can pay more attention to how situations make me feel. Although moods are sometimes involuntary, I can process a feeling without thinking, well it doesn’t matter how I feel at this moment because later on will feel better. 

Goals are necessary and help me reconcile my ambition.  But they feel less binding when I release this enormous pressure on them to make me happy. I have to be honest, the world seems dim nowadays, but happiness isn’t a far away land. It’s an activity we can all join.