How To Find Happiness: Recognize It When You See It
When I recently read L.A. Times columnist Meghan Daum's collection of essays, UNSPEAKABLE AND OTHER SUBJECTS OF DISCUSSION, I recognized a kindred spirit, especially in her attitude toward happiness. Like me, Meghan believes that happiness is both overrated and fleeting. In fact, I believe only very young children, senile old people, learning disabled people of all ages, and immature, willfully ignorant adults can find pure happiness. The rest of us are generally too aware of the past and the future to completely enjoy those fleeting moments of pure happiness like when we are eating our favorite foods. Not long before he died, my sports hero Arthur Ashe was discussing how much he enjoyed watching his then five-year-old daughter eat chocolate cake. He talked about how happy she was while she was eating that cake. Ashe's daughter was obviously not thinking about the possibility that the cake would give her a stomach ache or make her gain weight. She also wasn't thinking about what she would have to do when she finished eating the cake--wash the plate and fork, clean the house, grade papers. She was living in the happy moment of eating delicious chocolate cake.
There are many other reasons besides our inability to live only in the present that prevent mature, intelligent adults from being happy. Many of us expect too much from ourselves and from life. When I hear people say that after reaching a goal that they had been trying to reach for years, they asked, "Is that all?" I want to ask them, "What more did you expect?" When I earned my Ph.D. after seven years of living on or near the poverty line, writing numerous papers, taking too many exams, dealing with a few crazy and/or racist/sexist professors, and finally writing a dissertation while teaching writing at two different universities, I didn't expect my life to suddenly be wonderful. I had a job in a city (Boston) where I didn't know anyone and where I would have to deal with winter weather for the first time in seven years, so I was angry to discover that the racial climate in Boston was worse than the weather, but I didn't become depressed. In fact, after a few months there, I was happily anticipating moving back to the L.A. area a few years sooner than I had expected.
I'm convinced that pessimistic, negative thinkers like Meghan Daum and me are generally happier than optimistic, positive thinkers because we are less likely to be disappointed by life. People who don't expect there to be more, who don't expect to have it all, are better able to appreciate and enjoy what they do have. As I said in my memoir, "People who don't expect lights to turn green for them are not disappointed when they see a red light. And on those rare occasions when lights do turn green, they are delighted."
We are also happier if we don't expect too much of ourselves. There is nothing wrong with having big dreams, and occasionally big dreams do come true. A half-black, half-white man with the terrorist-sounding name, Barack Hussein Obama, becomes America's first non-white President or an Austrian bodybuilder with a thick accent, no facial expression, and no acting ability becomes a major movie star and then the governor of the biggest state in the country, even though he can't pronounce the state's name. But most of us need to aspire to goals that we have the skills to reach. I was a very good student and liked to help others learn, so I chose high school English teacher as my career goal. When I saw that I hated disciplining but liked teaching, I switched to college professor. Once I had reached that goal, I wasn't interested in becoming a dean, college president, or a great writer. I loved teaching and was very happy in the classroom.
I was also very happy as an adult who was able to take care of herself without help from a spouse or parent. I disagree with that song that says, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." We all do need people. We need doctors, teachers, garbage collectors, plumbers, etc. We can't get through this world alone, but the more we rely on other people to make us happy the less happy we will be. Because I'm not a great driver, I'm more dependent on people to drive me places, and when I'm not the driver, I can't count on arriving on time. Sometimes other drivers are prompt; sometimes they aren't.
Not allowing other people to define what happiness should be for me also has helped me be happier. As I said in my second Bronze Rule--The Pursuit of Happiness-- "People who have to murder, rape, or torture other people to be happy cannot be happy. But as long as my pursuit of happiness does not prevent you from being happy, get out of my way and let me be happy." I'm sure that there are unmarried women who are unhappy because they think they should be married, even if they don't really want a husband. In fact, I assume that the women who marry men who are on Death Row do so because they believe they should be married. I disagree. I prefer being happily unmarried to being unhappily married and then angrily divorced. Some people work better on teams, and some work better alone. I'm a loner. If I were a tennis player, I would play singles, not doubles.
I feel the same way about my hobbies that I do about my more serious life choices. I choose the hobbies that I enjoy, not the ones that other people think I should enjoy. I don't like travelling, so I don't. If we ever reach the point (portrayed in a Ray Bradbury story) where we can sit in our living rooms, say "Paris," and end up in a hotel in Paris, then I will start travelling all over the world, stopping in many places for one or two days only. Until then, I will enjoy staying at home, reading, writing, listening to music, and watching television. And let me say about watching television that I have no guilty pleasures. I watch whatever I want to watch--"Dancing with the Stars," "Atlanta Housewives," "Empire," and all of the real crime shows on "Dateline," "48 Hours," and the Investigative Discovery Channel--and don't worry about what people think a 66-year-old black, female, retired English professor should watch.
I also don't worry about how my happiness measures against other people's happiness. I don't have to be the happiest person in the room any more than I have to be the smartest person in the room (although, given a choice, I'd pick smartest). If other people are happy, I'm happy for them (unless they're haters), even if I'm going through a hard time because we mature, intelligent adults also know that hard times will pass, and we will have fleeting moments of happiness again. One of my favorite lines from the many spirituals that I love is "The storm is passing over, hallelujah!" When we've survived a terrible storm, we can appreciate the calm and peace more after it has passed.
The key to finding happiness, then, is lowering our expectations and appreciating the happy moments that we have before they pass.
There are many other reasons besides our inability to live only in the present that prevent mature, intelligent adults from being happy. Many of us expect too much from ourselves and from life. When I hear people say that after reaching a goal that they had been trying to reach for years, they asked, "Is that all?" I want to ask them, "What more did you expect?" When I earned my Ph.D. after seven years of living on or near the poverty line, writing numerous papers, taking too many exams, dealing with a few crazy and/or racist/sexist professors, and finally writing a dissertation while teaching writing at two different universities, I didn't expect my life to suddenly be wonderful. I had a job in a city (Boston) where I didn't know anyone and where I would have to deal with winter weather for the first time in seven years, so I was angry to discover that the racial climate in Boston was worse than the weather, but I didn't become depressed. In fact, after a few months there, I was happily anticipating moving back to the L.A. area a few years sooner than I had expected.
I'm convinced that pessimistic, negative thinkers like Meghan Daum and me are generally happier than optimistic, positive thinkers because we are less likely to be disappointed by life. People who don't expect there to be more, who don't expect to have it all, are better able to appreciate and enjoy what they do have. As I said in my memoir, "People who don't expect lights to turn green for them are not disappointed when they see a red light. And on those rare occasions when lights do turn green, they are delighted."
We are also happier if we don't expect too much of ourselves. There is nothing wrong with having big dreams, and occasionally big dreams do come true. A half-black, half-white man with the terrorist-sounding name, Barack Hussein Obama, becomes America's first non-white President or an Austrian bodybuilder with a thick accent, no facial expression, and no acting ability becomes a major movie star and then the governor of the biggest state in the country, even though he can't pronounce the state's name. But most of us need to aspire to goals that we have the skills to reach. I was a very good student and liked to help others learn, so I chose high school English teacher as my career goal. When I saw that I hated disciplining but liked teaching, I switched to college professor. Once I had reached that goal, I wasn't interested in becoming a dean, college president, or a great writer. I loved teaching and was very happy in the classroom.
I was also very happy as an adult who was able to take care of herself without help from a spouse or parent. I disagree with that song that says, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." We all do need people. We need doctors, teachers, garbage collectors, plumbers, etc. We can't get through this world alone, but the more we rely on other people to make us happy the less happy we will be. Because I'm not a great driver, I'm more dependent on people to drive me places, and when I'm not the driver, I can't count on arriving on time. Sometimes other drivers are prompt; sometimes they aren't.
Not allowing other people to define what happiness should be for me also has helped me be happier. As I said in my second Bronze Rule--The Pursuit of Happiness-- "People who have to murder, rape, or torture other people to be happy cannot be happy. But as long as my pursuit of happiness does not prevent you from being happy, get out of my way and let me be happy." I'm sure that there are unmarried women who are unhappy because they think they should be married, even if they don't really want a husband. In fact, I assume that the women who marry men who are on Death Row do so because they believe they should be married. I disagree. I prefer being happily unmarried to being unhappily married and then angrily divorced. Some people work better on teams, and some work better alone. I'm a loner. If I were a tennis player, I would play singles, not doubles.
I feel the same way about my hobbies that I do about my more serious life choices. I choose the hobbies that I enjoy, not the ones that other people think I should enjoy. I don't like travelling, so I don't. If we ever reach the point (portrayed in a Ray Bradbury story) where we can sit in our living rooms, say "Paris," and end up in a hotel in Paris, then I will start travelling all over the world, stopping in many places for one or two days only. Until then, I will enjoy staying at home, reading, writing, listening to music, and watching television. And let me say about watching television that I have no guilty pleasures. I watch whatever I want to watch--"Dancing with the Stars," "Atlanta Housewives," "Empire," and all of the real crime shows on "Dateline," "48 Hours," and the Investigative Discovery Channel--and don't worry about what people think a 66-year-old black, female, retired English professor should watch.
I also don't worry about how my happiness measures against other people's happiness. I don't have to be the happiest person in the room any more than I have to be the smartest person in the room (although, given a choice, I'd pick smartest). If other people are happy, I'm happy for them (unless they're haters), even if I'm going through a hard time because we mature, intelligent adults also know that hard times will pass, and we will have fleeting moments of happiness again. One of my favorite lines from the many spirituals that I love is "The storm is passing over, hallelujah!" When we've survived a terrible storm, we can appreciate the calm and peace more after it has passed.
The key to finding happiness, then, is lowering our expectations and appreciating the happy moments that we have before they pass.
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