Happiness Isn’t the Point
Nothing will make us more unhappy than trying to be happy. Sadly, the cause of nearly all meltdowns, both personal and societal, is the lie that people should always be happy, comfortable, and satisfied. If life has taught me anything, it’s that happiness is a fickle and fleeting friend. To take the metaphor further, she is always with you on the journey, but playing hide and seek, like an ADHD child with the energy of a border collie.
Much of my young life was lived under the illusion that the point of life was to become happy. So, naturally, I joined the military with the goal of retirement, because that was bound to get me into the prestigious club of happy people that I imagined. As I rose through the ranks, throughout four deployments overseas, I found that the opposite was happening. This false idea that I had formed my whole worldview around, and informed the people-pleasing way I dealt with people - that we all should be happy - was wrecking havoc on my life and family. Not to mention all the time spent between Iraq and Afghanistan, living on the other side of the wafer-thin veil that hangs between order and chaos, which provided a stark contrast to my world-view.
Living my life with the goal of being happy, made me a liar and a scoundrel. I was good at my job, but I was mostly in it for me. However, my family saw the devastating affects of a stupid worldview, and how it fed my PTSD symptoms. I was never physically abusive, but I was angry and made sure they knew it. The pursuit of happiness, and need to control her, caused me to be a bitter, judgmental, and disgusting person that I’m sure wouldn’t recognize the persona I am today: a person who is who they are. Nothing more, nothing less.
I am still growing and learning, but since abandoning my old beliefs that kept me trapped in a downward spiral of hedonism and pleasure, I chose to empty myself of the entitlement to happiness, and set her free. Quickly after, the need to shed the skin of every other belief was necessary, because my old worldview informed everything else I thought and did. I became nothing and nowhere, so to speak.
For the next year, I found myself in my wood shop, doing repetitive work in relative silence, as I tried to work out who I was and what made me, me.
As I spent my days splitting wood for the fire, felling trees, making things for my house in order to sell it for the divorce, and making things for friends, I noticed that when I started every day without the purpose of being happy, and just began my work, happiness would come back to visit me from time to time. She was free to run ahead, or lag behind on the new path I had chosen, and she is still always there to comfort me when I need it.
The new path was the pursuit of mastery in woodworking. That has been tweaked over time, and I dare say that happiness has been the one who tweaked it.
I see happiness as a sort of intermediary between you and whatever goal you have submitted yourself to. She can communicate directly with the “god” you are serving and you. She brings new inspiration, rekindles the embers of old ideas into flame, and gives you courage when it’s time be brave. Then, she leaves you to deal with whatever it is you need to take care of.
