Actively Seeking Happiness

The 20th century French philosopher, Alain, (real name Émile-Auguste Chartier) once wrote, "You have to want to be happy and do your part thereto. If you persist in the attitude of impartial spectator, merely holding the door open to happiness, only sadness will enter."

I'm not sure I entirely agree with him. Because sometimes, actively seeking happiness can lead to always living in the future (the If Only mindset) and never being content with what is happening to us in the present. Which can lead to great unhappiness... Unless he means that it is in our power to control our reactions to our experiences, and are able to choose to what extent X or Y makes us happy or sad, in which case, I do agree. 

As human beings, we do have a certain amount of control over our reactions. We can learn to be resilient, refusing to be ground down by negative experiences. We can choose to either make the best of a bad situation, or to allow it to crush us. We can also learn to be on the lookout for small moments of wonder and grace in our lives, which will lead to happiness if we choose to appreciate them as they occur.

I can speak to this from immediate personal experience. Yesterday, my husband drove me to Danetre Hospital to have an x-ray and get the final dressing removed from my foot. And I had high (and, on reflection, incredibly naive) hopes about it: I thought that after six weeks, it would be All Better and I would be able to get back to normal, just like that.

And the news was very good. I saw the talented surgeon who did the operation, and both he and I were delighted by the results. The angle between the base of my big toe and the next door one had been 33 degrees; it is now 14 degrees - a massive improvement. In the long term, it's going to be far less painful to walk and to wear shoes.

But, the time to a full recovery is going to be slow, far slower than I had hoped and expected, having no prior experience of such an injury. I still have to sit with my foot elevated except when I'm walking around the house once an hour, I will need to massage the toes once a day for two minutes using E45, and wear trainers inside and outdoors to support the foot. I am only allowed to build up my walking very gradually - 10 minutes the first day, then by 5 minute increments, and no long walks for another three months. I am not allowed to drive for another fortnight, and no distance driving for a further month after that. Plus which, I will need to take a break every hour on a long journey and elevate my foot for 15 minutes. 

Oh, and I should expect some swelling and pain for up to six months... and of course, my toes were really sore for the rest of the day, having had pins removed from both the 2nd and 3rd ones.

My initial reaction was negative: I sat around for the rest of the day, feeling very fed up and sorry for myself. It took a while to get over my disappointment, although on reflection, I should have expected this news. I now understand that the operation was a massive "insult" to my foot (to use my surgeon's term) and that of course the recovery is going to take a while. That I am very lucky to be in a situation where my husband can continue to do the things I can't, and to have a warm and cosy house and a reclining armchair which enables me to work with my foot up.

So I have nixed the pity party and have resolved to be both cheerful and patient in the weeks and months to come, trusting that my foot will heal completely in its own good time. So to that extent, I am following Alain's advice, and being an active participant in my own happiness.

 

Aim for the Moon

 The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has some good advice for us: "Aim for the moon. Even if you miss it, you'll end up among the stars."

Aiming for the moon requires a certain combination of qualities: an innate optimism, a large dollop of self-belief, and the courage to try and fail, then try again. If any of those elements is missing, it will be more difficult for us to aim high. 

If we do not have at least a little innate optimism, we'll tend to concentrate on what might go wrong instead of on what might go right. And will shrink from taking risks, just in case... When we ask the "what if?" question, our brain will supply us with negative possibilities, rather than encouragement. 

If we don't believe in ourselves and our abilities, we will find it harder to aim high, because imposter syndrome will raise its ugly head, "Who do you think you are to aim high? Other people are much better at [whatever it is] than you. You don't deserve to be here, doing this." 

If we are frightened of failure, we might rather not do anything, than try and risk not succeeding. Failure doesn't feel good and it takes a special kind of courage to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and stubbornly try again. I've blogged about this here.

I believe it is fatal to listen to the pessimistic, self-doubting, mouse-scared voices in our heads - they will hold us back from growing into our best selves, from aiming for the moon. And I can testify to the joys of being an innate optimist, with some self-belief and courage. I have always "gone for it" and the rewards have been enormous. My life has been much happier for it.

The Benefits of Seeing Life As It Is

 Sir Adolphus William Ward, an eminent historian and man of letters, once wrote, "The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist hopes that it will turn, the realist hoists the sails."

Which is a clever aphorism to illustrate the differences between pessimists, optimists and realists. As regular readers of this blog will know, I am a born optimist, and proud of it. Yet Ward's words have made me wonder whether I am sometimes ridiculously naive - whether all optimists are.

Because all the hope in the world will not help any particular situation. Change for the better will only happen when our hope is translated into a firm plan to do something about whatever is bothering us. So the fierce practicality of the realist is perhaps something I should cultivate more. I can see that there is little point in being optimistic about the future, unless we are prepared to buckle down and do our bit to make it so. All the optimism in the world won't change that world. Only concrete actions can do that.

Yet I also believe that realists (who can often be quite pessimistic in their outlook, because they see things as they are, and there is so much to grieve about in the world today) might also take a leaf out of the optimists' book. The leaf of hope, the belief that something can be done. The belief that the world can change if we work at it hard enough.

A combination of optimism (so that we believe in the possibility of a better future) and realism (so that we are prepared channel that hope into action) is perhaps the best course to adopt. 

it's an Inside Job

 I very much like this week's quotation, by Marcus Aurelius: "The ability to live happily comes from a power within the soul."

Because I do believe that happiness is an inside job. Let me declare one fact straight away: I am an optimist, married to a pessimist (although he would call himself a realist). I have blogged about this before, here, so I'm not going to repeat myself. Suffice it to say, I think I've got the better deal, as I am happier for more of the time...

The gorgeous postcard which accompanies this week's quote made me very happy. And reminded me of a special evening last year, when I was holidaying in mid-Wales with my best friend. We went down to the local beach to watch the sun setting, and it was completely glorious. Here is a photo I took with my phone that evening:

We were down there for about three quarters of an hour and were filled with awe and wonder at the beauty in front of us. And yes, happiness, that we were able to witness it. 

So this year, back at the same lovely holiday cottage with my husband, I decided to take him down to the beach to share the glory. Sadly, there were some clouds, which meant it wasn't quite the same, but when the sun came through a gap, the effect was equally stunning. It made me feel happy to be alive...

I read somewhere (I can't remember where) that individuals are born with an innate quota of happiness. So that even when something wonderful (or something dreadful) happens to them, although they may be happier (or sadder) in the short term, they will eventually revert to their default happiness level. I think the example given was lottery winners, who are thrilled when they win a substantial sum of money, then discover that it hasn't really made a difference to their happiness in the long term.

Another example, used by Geneen Roth, is about losing weight. She says that people tend to put living their best and happiest lives off, until they've reached their desired weight, rather than being happy now, allowing themselves to be happy now. 

So happiness is also about trying to appreciate the present moment. Which I believe is a spiritual practice, like any other. I blogged about having a gratitude practice as recently as last month. It really is an inside job.

How do you nurture your own happiness?

Every Joy is a Gain

 The 19th century poet, Robert Browning, once wrote, "Every joy is a gain, and a gain is a gain, however small."

This is something I have always believed. I have blogged about my optimistic outlook before (see the keyword "optimism" in the links to the right of this post). Yet it can take a lot of courage to embrace the idea behind Browning's words. When we are in a bad or sad situation, when all the joy seems to have drained out of our lives, leaving them grey and bleak, we can easily look around and see no hope, no prospect of ever feeling joyful again.

Which is why I believe that having some kind of daily gratitude practice is so valuable, to give us another perspective on our lives. Somewhere in her books, Brené Brown writes about gratitude, and shares a practice that her family has: they go round the table during the evening meal and each person shares something they are grateful about on that particular day. And she says that this may only be gratitude that the day is over, if it has been a difficult one. Which I believe rather proves Browning's point that "gain is gain, however small." Simply being alive at the end of the day is its own joy, because every day, someone (in fact many someones) will have breathed their last.

I call my own gratitude practice "small pleasures" and record them in the daily log of my Bullet Journal each evening. And I can *always* think of something - a moment of sunshine, a kind word from a family member or friend, completing (or making progress with) a particular task, noticing something beautiful in the natural world. 

I think that noticing moments of beauty and kindness and yes, joy, in our daily lives can help us to appreciate that not everything in our lives is awful. To give a current example from my own life, yesterday I had a hospital appointment, the upshot of which is, I will be having surgery on my left foot later this year, to correct my deformed toes, which are becoming a problem. And, amid the nervousness that this news inevitably brought, I was able to feel joyful that once I have recovered from the operation, my foot will be able to fit into ordinary shoes again (not trainers and one pair of boots). 

I wish you every joy that life can bring and the power to notice them as they happen.

Looking on the Bright Side

 Friedrich Löchner was a 19th century Lutheran minister, first in Germany, then in the US. He wrote many hymns and also this: "A year is long - and making every day an unrepentent celebration is the highest art of living."

I'm not sure what I think about this sentiment. As a natural optimist, I would embrace it - I journal about the things I am grateful for each night, for example. Yet I cannot help thinking that it is simply not possible. Every day is not a cause for "unrepentent celebration", not for me, not for anyone. Everyone has some trials, some sorrow in their lives. I guess that finding something to celebrate in each day is a worthy goal, and it is a better way to live than finding things to be gloomy about instead. I am far more of a Tigger than an Eeyore, and tend to look on the bright side of life. I have blogged about this here.

But still. Although I personally may be able to celebrate something good each day, I am well aware that for many people, this is not the case. I only have to read or listen to the news to see that all is far from well in the world. 

Perhaps it would be best for me (for all of us who have something to celebrate each day) to spend at least part of each day trying to make the lives of others less fortunate than ourselves better. And then celebrate that. 

Enjoy Life!

 First century Roman philosopher and statesman, Seneca, urges us to "enjoy life! It flees at a rapid pace."

Which is something I have always striven to do. In fact, I have sometimes been accused of being naive, idealistic and teethgrindingly positive, by less optimistic friends. But I would far rather try to see the good in any situation, then to drown in the bad. I consciously try to live in the present moment, neither regretting the past, nor worrying about the future. Well, I try...!

You might say, "That's easy for you to say - you have never known real sorrow, genuine suffering and misery." And it's true, to a certain extent - my life has been incredibly blessed, on the whole. I have a loving husband, two wonderful grown up children, and some very dear friends.

Nevertheless, I am 62. I have not got to this point in my life without being acquainted with sorrow, suffering and misery. I have lost people who were dear to me. I have suffered physical pain. But I have also been blessed with a natural "glass half-full" temperament and have never suffered from either anxiety and depression. Both of which (I know, from sitting with friends who suffer from these) are debilitating and all-consuming.

So I also strive to be compassionate towards those who are suffering, who are miserable, who are anxious, who cannot see the end of the tunnel. Karen Armstrong writes that true compassion is about dethroning the ego and genuinely trying to put ourselves in the other person's place, meeting them where they are, without trying to "make it all better". It's about deep listening, without our own agenda. And it's about doing whatever we can. 

And not being offensively bouncy and upbeat, trying to "cheer people up." Not being Tigger to their Eeyore. Because when someone is suffering, miserable, grieving, ill, the last thing they want is to be slapped on the back and told that it will all be over soon, and to get over it. That is an incredibly unhelpful, offensive (if wellmeaning) way to behave.

(image: Disney, nsc blog)

And so I try to remember Pema Chodron's words, which Brene Brown often quotes, "Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It is a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well enough can we be present with the darkness of others." Without trying to flip on the light, make it all better.

Twixt Optimist and Pessimist

Leo Tolstoy once wrote, "Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them." And I have found this to be so true. I am an optimist, married to a pessimist (although he would call himself a realist...)

It reminded me of the old rhyme, "Twixt optimist and pessimist, the difference is droll: the optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist sees the hole."

(Aside: don't those look fabulous? One of the many losses of being coeliac is that I can no longer eat doughnuts. Which is a pessimistic way of looking at things, because there are so many nice things I *can* still eat. Interesting!)

So it depends on your point of view. I honestly believe I am happier when I "lean into joy" as Brené Brown puts it. It is a more vulnerable way of living, because (perhaps) optimists are more prone to disappointment. But I would many times rather be disappointed sometimes than to expect the worst all the time.

Tolstoy has a more serious point to make. Because if we pin our happiness on outward things, we become dependent on those other things *for* our happiness. And if something external to ourselves, which we don't have any control over, goes wrong, it can ruin our whole day.

Whereas, if our outlook is determinedly positive, we might be able to find some grain of goodness, happiness, in most things. Like he said, it's all about "how we see them."

Let me give you an example. It so happens that I'm re-reading C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, and have just started Book 6, The Silver Chair. In which one of the main characters is that arch-pessimist, Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle. Who says things like, "The bright side of it is, that if we break our necks getting down the cliff, then we're safe from being drowned in the river." Reading the children's conversations with him always makes me laugh.

But the realist side of his pessimism sometimes comes in useful, as his cautious approach to life saves Jill and Eustace from falling into scrapes, and keeps them grounded. For example, "Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one."

And they come to value his wisdom and bravery. As Jill says towards the end of the book, "You're a regular old humbug. You sound as doleful as a funeral and I believe you're perfectly happy. And you talk as if you were afraid of everything, when you're really as brave as - as a lion."

So I guess it does depend on your point of view - we optimists need pessimists to keep us grounded and the pessimists need optimists to cheer them up, or to walk compassionately alongside them. There is room for both kinds of people in the world and in truth, most of us are a mixture.

Life seen through a sunbeam

"Joy is life seen through a sunbeam." This week's quote, by Carmen Sylva, set me thinking. What did it mean?

Did it mean that we have to wear rose-tinted spectacles, so that we don't see anything that disturbs our serenity? Because if so, I have to disagree... if we are to be fully human, we need to be awake to the injustices and pain of the world, the better to do something about them. Heaven only knows there are enough of them, just now. So much so, in fact, that when I saw that my "reading for the week" from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, was about pain, I was quite relieved. At least I would now have the opportunity to share what is on my mind and heart, in the hope that it would help others to wrestle with it too. And I have done so, here.

Or did it mean that joy is the underlying condition of our human lives, but that we cannot always see it? I blogged about that some time ago. Part of that blogpost read, "although our thoughts, moods and feelings may change from day to day, or even from moment to moment, there is a deep, peaceful, sky-blue awareness behind and above them, into which we can sink, if we just have the patience to sit in silence for a while, and let our passing emotions do just that - pass by."



Or did it mean a willingness to see the best in everything, and everybody? That human beings are not naturally depraved and corrupt. That our default state is to be kind, to co-operate with one another, to share our belongings and our lives.

I'm currently listening to an interesting new book, by Rutger Bregman, called Humankind: A Hopeful History. His thesis, so far as I understand it, is that our perceptions of humankind are skewed, because the news we watch, and scroll through on social media, always and only fixates on exceptional human behaviour, which is generally bad. War, murder, rape, genocide and so on. "Good news is no news" as the old saying goes. Whereas in reality, the majority of people are better than that, kinder than that, more caring than that. He demonstrates this with many examples. I haven't finished it yet, but it is fascinating, and I recommend it to anyone.

(image: e-bay)

Rising Again

This week's quotation is by Rainer Maria Rilke: "Man muss nie verzweifeln, wenn einem etwas verloren geht, ein Mensch oder eine Freude oder ein Glück. Es kommt alles noch viel herrlicher wieder.

Which being translated, means, "One must never despair, when something is lost - a person or a joy or a happiness. Everything will become more beautiful again."

But it is very natural to despair when something is lost, particularly a person. I think that what Rilke is saying is, however black things may appear at certain times, don't give up, because eventually life will get better.

Which is fine and even comforting, if you're a natural optimist, like I am. But I know that certain friends of mine have a far more bleak outlook on life, and are more pessimistic about eventual outcomes.

I *wish* I could wave a magic wand, and make their pain go away. But I know that I can't.

I have learned that the only thing anyone can do, for someone who is depressed, is to be there with them, not trying to fix them, not trying to cheer them up, not trying to make the pain go away. Just being there, alongside them, so that they know they are not alone.



May we all be such friends, each to one another.

A Travelling Companion

This week's photo is of three wheeled huts, parked on a beach. The text, by Margaret Lee Runbeck, says, "Glück ist keine Station, bei der man ankommt, sondern eine Art zu reisen."

Which being translated, means "Happiness is not a station to arrive at, but a way to travel."

The American Declaration of Independence speaks of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as "certain unalienable rights" with which all of humankind is endowed. I agree that all humankind has the right to life and the right to liberty, but I'm not so sure about "the pursuit of happiness".

Because I believe that happiness should not be not the goal of our lives, but a way of being in the world, which makes our journey through life easier. I think that pursuing happiness might actually lead to not being happy, where we are at the present moment. If we fall into the "if only" trap, we can actually be postponing the possibility of happiness.

For example, "I'll be happy, if only I could lose ten pounds." "I'll be happy, if I get a promotion at work." "I'll be happy, if only ... [fill in the blanks yourself]".

The knack is to find ways of being happy where we are, right now. Stanley A. Mellor, Unitarian minister at Hope Street Church in Liverpool during World War One, delivered a series of addresses which were published under the title The Last Victory: Studies in Religious Optimism. I was given this book as a gift a few years ago, and it touched me profoundly.

Mellor explains: "Their purpose was... to remind people again of the conditions under which glowing faith must always furnish its warmth in a finite world, to face certain fundamental perplexities in the light of faith, and to provide encouragement and hope. The responsibility of surviving into the world of peace after war... must press heavily on every sensitive spirit, and the need for radiant constructive faith in the ultimate goodness and worth of life is very great, and will become greater."

The whole book is a paean of hope, of "radiant constructive faith in the ultimate goodness and worth of life." I have blogged about it here and would like to repeat one further quote from that post:

"The part of The Last Victory which has brought the most enlightenment is where Mellors insists that 'Optimism is not a scientific certainty, no true optimist ever said it was. It is an affirmation of the spirit, a risk accepted by the soul... Call it what you will, belief in the unseen world, belief in the reality of the Ideal, faith in the solidarity and eternal value of goodness... the certainty remains that without it Humanity cannot go forward, and without we ourselves can do no good and worthy work in the world.'

Happiness is a way to travel, not a distant goal to be pursued.