^^ I really enjoyed this article: "There's More to Life Than Being Happy," by Emily Esfahani Smith. It resonated deeply with me and is exactly in line with my thinking on a topic I’ve thought lot about over the years. There are lots of talk and websites and books and FB pages about happiness and how to achieve it and how much we deserve it by virtue of our humanity, and that’s made me cranky because it has always felt to me like an easy cop-out in a privileged life. Why do we deserve to be happy? Because we want to be? Do people who are unhappy due to desperate conditions deserve to be unhappy? It’s got to cut both ways to be true. To some, the answer is obvious: We should be happy because the universe wants us to be.
I believe the universe doesn’t care one way or another. The universe just is. We contribute to it, but it exists with or without us. Our lives and the meaningfulness we make of our lives are our responsibility, but the search for happiness for its own sake is narcissistic and selfish, bluntly put. And ironically, seeing to our own happiness does not lead to happiness. Well, it does momentarily, but reality inevitably creeps in. When we look in the mirror, what do we see if we’re honest?
The Journal of Positive Psychology authors wrote, “Happiness without meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-absorbed or even selfish life.” This goes against the popular meme of, Just determine to be happy and the universe will reward you. I believe if you are giving to others and honor your obligations even when difficult or uncomfortable, your own sense of pride and meaning will reward you. Viktor Frankl, in “Man’s Search for Meaning,” makes the point that seeking to satisfy our own needs is selfish and serving others and honoring our commitments, even when inconvenient – especially when inconvenient – is what gives our life meaning, and that meaning brings us a deeper kind of happiness in the long run than the momentary pleasures of having fun.
A lot of today’s popular gurus encourage us to be happy through the power of affirmations and positive self-talk, but affirmations ring hollow if they’re just words without deeds. There has to be something behind them. “I am a loving (smart, creative, positive) person” must be demonstrated through acts or it’s empty; pablum. We want more from our lives than pablum. We want to feel proud, not to stoke our egos but because it helps give our lives meaning; pride in meeting obligations.
So if you’re slogging through life meeting an obligation when you’d rather be doing something else, know that honoring your commitments and living your life authentically may be more difficult in the short term, but in the longer term, you will feel better about yourself, and you should, than if you found reasons not to honor your obligations, distracting yourself with fun. I am prouder of myself when I do something I should even when I don’t want to. That kind of pride is valuable.
So if you’re slogging through life meeting an obligation when you’d rather be doing something else, know that honoring your commitments and living your life authentically may be more difficult in the short term, but in the longer term, you will feel better about yourself, and you should, than if you found reasons not to honor your obligations, distracting yourself with fun. I am prouder of myself when I do something I should even when I don’t want to. That kind of pride is valuable.
Find why you are here, what is your gift, what gives your own life meaning, and celebrate and pursue that and share it. Leo Tolstoy said, “The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.” He didn’t say it would be easy.
1 comment:
"The purpose of life is not to be happy but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all." ~Leo Rosten (1908 - 1997)
http://kiwanja.net/
Post a Comment