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Happiness Is a Choice
The past couple of weeks have been a challenge for me. I have not been particularly happy. By happy, I’m talking about a mental and emotional state where generally a person feels mostly pleased with life, notices the blessings he or she is experiencing, and feels a level of satisfaction and pleasure with relationships and activities. Happiness does not refer to a steady state of joy or bliss. It means choosing to see the good fortune in your life, however you define it, and not choosing to be stuck in a steady mood of anger, annoyance, frustration, and other negative states that you find yourself in. For some people, these states are not a choice. They come up on you, engulf you with disappointment, and it can seem impossible to free yourself from them. They may seem like a way of life.
That has not been my experience. Except recently.
I could give you all kinds of reasons for being stuck in the mire. I’ve lost one friend and jeopardized my relationship with another. I’m wrestling with the remnants of cancer treatment — nothing major, but they are annoying as all get-out. My allergies are going bonkers in between 24-hour pills. Yesterday, I had a mammogram on my remaining breast, and I was surprised to realize that my anxiety about the results is just below the surface. (I’m waiting patiently.) No one of these situations is a big deal but cause me just enough discomfort to feel stuck.
But it doesn’t take much to shake my commitment to misery. Today, I met with my group that meets once per month to discuss various things Jewish on Zoom. After the meeting, I sent an e-card to a delightful woman in the group who is having breast surgery tomorrow, sending her love and prayers. And this was her reply:
Thank you for your kind thoughts. You are an inspiration to me. You came through all this with a smile on your face and love in your heart. I hope I can do the same. Sarah (not her real name)
Wow. I’m not sharing her message to brag. I’m just saying there are so many things that happen in our lives that give us permission to break out of the doldrums and emerge changed. And there are so many things we can do to connect us to life in a way that lifts our spirits.
I formed this Zoom group and made new friends. I’m practicing forgiving myself when I hurt others. I’m staying open to possibility and celebrating life’s sweetness. I try to be a good friend (most of the time). I maintain (with only rare cheating) a healthy lifestyle. I smile and say hello to people I meet. I meditate. I pray. I study. And the past few days, I chose to remind myself that even if I feel alone, G-d is always present.
Yes, there are times I want to indulge my grievances and feel sorry for myself. But after a while, it’s tiring and probably boring for others.
So I chose happiness.
Published in Culture
You pack a powerful punch for such dimensions.
Quests are good for that. Get her a few hobbit companions and a ring to dispose of. Just the ticket!
Oh, now that sounds like great fun!
I think it might just be a tad bit unrealistic and a set-up for disappointment. But if you can do it, have at it! ;-)
Great advice, Susan! Thank you! I’ve been thinking exactly about it a lot the past week and posted about it on my Facebook timeline on Sunday. I was also in a bit of a funk for a couple of weeks. A couple of things had been playing on my mind but certainly nothing that should have been sapping my energy the way it was. Thankfully, it was Gaudete Sunday for us Catholics last Sunday and some good sermons helped get my head right and I’ve felt much better this week.
Also, I see from this post how little I’ve been on Ricochet this year. I pop on every so often but I did not realize until this post about your medical issues. I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through all that but happy you’ve kept your spirits up. I have no idea when’s the next time I’ll be in Tampa but I hope to get a chance to see you and your husband again when I am. I enjoyed our time together very much!
Good to see you, Chris! Keep us posted on your whereabouts!
If reading man’s search for meaning and trying to suck it up doesn’t work, find a therapist that does this type of therapy.
That was kind of my point. For a lot of people living in unimaginable pain (physical, mental, emotional) the idea that they can “choose” happiness is “a tad bit unrealistic.”
So there’s this woman living in Israel. Her name is Chamotel Ben Ze’ev. I once heard an interview with her when she said, “We are taught to both fear and love God. I am always somewhat disturbed by the fact that God has been so good to me that all I can do is love Him.” And yet, as we know, every family in Israel, which is really one family, has experienced significant loss.
Here is a holiday song of hers. It proclaims that together, all the children of Israel are joyful, each one is different but all are brothers, giving and united, one people with one heart, “and you shall love your fellow as yourself.”
You’re certainly right that even that level of happiness can seem unrealistic, completely unrealistic. I think about that too when I think about how to engage someone actually in the midst of a difficulty. It’s not easy. Rarely, if ever, is it advice given to that person at that time. But does that invalidate it as good advice? I find I have to really ponder on it in good and bad times and commit it as a deep philosophical belief. I know that’s much more difficult when that “unimaginable pain” is more long-term.
An aside: Joyful, IMHO, is a better word than happy. Happy has been used to the point that I think it has lost all meaning. Joyful is something else again. You, Susan, always seem joyful. And isn’t that enough?
There are people who live with terrible, chronic pain who choose to be happy. It must be extremely difficult. But as you say, Chris, that doesn’t make the point invalid. Those people show enormous courage and commitment to live a life of happiness, meaning one of deep satisfaction. It doesn’t mean being happy all the time. They are an inspiration to me, since it is much easier to wallow in pain and misery. I’m sure they have times when they are wretched, but the commitment remains.
Joshu, I’m so touched by this comment. Thank you. I do try to be joyful. I have so much to appreciate in my life. But sometimes, it is very hard. Still, the commitment remains.
At first I thought what you wrote was more contentment, so I looked up contentment, happiness and joy. They seem to be the same thing categorically, but only a matter of degree.
In summary:
Content: satisfied; taking the good with the bad, but clearly finding things well-enough; pleased, delight, pleasure; in one definition being contented in mind.
Happiness: well-satisfied; good, success, prosperity, fitness, suitability; in one sense a pleasurable state of mind.
Joy: most satisfied; a vivid emotion of pleasure arising from a sense of well-being or satisfaction; highly pleased delighted; delight; bliss, praise, thanksgiving.
Categorically, it would appear that the opposite category is dissatisfaction, want, sourness, displeasure, unsuitability, poverty, resentment, failure, a vivid emotion of displeasure, pain, criticism, or unsatisfied entitlement.
It sounds to me like you are deliberately choosing satisfaction and thanksgiving over resentment and entitlement. And some times it is more difficult than others. I’d say you’re doing great under stressful circumstances.
Sometimes it’s hard, Flicker, but it’s worth the effort, I believe. I’ve been unhappy in the past, and it’s so unpleasant and defeating that at some point I decided it wasn’t worth staying there. Thanks so much for the positive feedback!
To flip things around, I would say that in many cases misery is a choice. Of course I’m not denying that there are people whose circumstances are genuinely bad. But nowadays we see so many people — mostly on the Left — who seem to take perverse delight in being miserable, despite living in the most prosperous society that has ever existed. Point out to them anything positive, and they’ll go out of their way to find, or invent, a dark side that permits them to feel bad about it. That’s a choice, and it baffles me that so many people seem willingly to choose it.
It baffles me, too, BXO. I agree with your point, and it’ a mystery to me. If we could figure out the origin of that malady, we may be on to a cure!
Right-o, Susan, in all things here. I’m sorry it took something external to pull you back, but sometimes it does. You still had a choice about it and made the right one.
Thanks, Chris.