The Pursuit of Happiness

Today I sat down to write about the myth in the title of this post and in the process came across a delightful blog.  As I explore this world of blogging and social networking I’m discovering wonderful, intelligent, delightful, interesting people writing about wonderful intelligent, delightful, interesting things, and I’m so excited to be joining them both as a reader and participant.  I’m feeling happy right now.

Here’s the thing.  I don’t always feel happy because happy is not a way of life, it is a feeling, an emotion.  It’s something I sometimes feel.  Just like I sometimes feel sad, angry, disappointed, excited, joyful, confident, uncertain, grateful, needy and so on.  None of these do I experience all the time.  

The problem with the pursuit of happiness, it seems to me, is that what I hear is that I ‘should’ be happy all the time.  There are best selling books, blogs, articles all over telling me to be happy, be happy.  It feels unbalanced.  I fully agree with the importance of looking at what’s working in my life rather than always getting stuck in what’s not working.  I take time to smell the flowers (literally, I love nature), relax, be grateful, laugh, find and follow my passions.  And I’m not always able to do that, because there are things that happen in life that aren’t fun, delightful, positive and that don’t make me feel happy.  

The question is what do I do with those moments?  The pursuit of happiness movement doesn’t seem to allow me room to feel other feelings like sadness, fear, uncertainty.  I don’t always feel I’m allowed to be angry or irritable, or anything else.  Inner peace and acceptance of what is are choices I can make that create balance.  Even when I’m having a strong feeling about something, I can be at peace even in the midst of powerful emotions, knowing that my feelings are not who I am just what I'm experiencing right now, that everything changes and whatever this is it won’t last forever.  In acceptance of my present experience, I create space for all my feelings as they’re happening.  When I allow space, my feelings move through me and don’t get pushed down somewhere in my body to manifest later in pain, illness, angry outbursts,  cascades of tears, anxiety or depression.  When I’m present with all my feelings, accept that they are true and temporary, I can know in the moment how best to take care of myself.  

When I allow my feelings to move through, take care of myself by listening to what my feelings are inviting me to pay attention to, my nervous system settles, I think more clearly and in this way take care of everyone around me as well.  So it’s not selfish to take care of myself.  It’s actually an act of great generosity, but that’s another post (and one I should write soon...oops, I shoulded on myself...let me change that to intend).  

I don’t need to pursue happiness.  The pursuit of anything is a source of stress.  I can simply be open to all of my experience, all of the time, allow myself to feel as happy as I feel when I experience something that evokes that in me, and there are many, many such things.  I can also feel whatever other feelings I feel without telling myself I’m a failure because I’m not happy all the time.  No one is.  I’m happy right now, though, smiling and I think I’ll go spread my arms, allow my smile to grow and laugh out loud.  Happiness needs space to move, too.  Be all of who you are!