The Meeting Place of Fantasy and Reality

 I'm not sure I agree with the 20th century German psychologist, Alexander Mitscherlich, who once wrote, "Happiness is the meeting place of fantasy and reality."

I'm writing this blogpost at the beginning of the season of Advent, which is generally viewed as a season of anticipating the joy of Jesus' birth, or looking forward to spending time with our loved ones. Yet for many people, the Christmas season is not one of joy, of hope - it is rather a time of worry about the expense and how to manage the expectations of others, or a time of loneliness, of feeling left out, when everyone else (apparently, if all the adverts on the TV are to be believed) is having a wonderful time. Or a time of grief, as someone they care about is ill, or as they prepare to spend their first Christmas without a much-missed loved one. Christmas, and the build-up to it, can be really hard for many of us.

I think Mitscherlich is talking about the happiness which occurs when our dreams (our fantasies, if you like) come true. But I believe there is a lot more to true happiness than that. In my view, happiness is not only re-active (by which I mean, it rises in us in response to events outside ourselves). It can also be pro-active; an "inside job", if I can put it that way. Because I believe that the only thing over which we genuinely have control is our own response to the events which happen to us, to the waiting time, the anticipation time, the time of fantasies. To that extent, we can control our own level of happiness, but in no other way.

I have shared before, and will doubtless say again, my belief that "now" - the present moment - is the only time that has any significance whatsoever. The past is over, and cannot be changed, and dwelling on it, either with nostalgia or regret, is a waste of time and emotion. And the future is something which is rushing towards us at a rate of 60 seconds a minute, 60 minutes an hour and 24 hours a day, whether we are looking forward to it, or worrying about it. I do concede that it is important to do at least some planning for future events, but not to the extent that we spend all our time longing for some mythical future time (in fantasies), when everything will be wonderful and we will have all that our hearts desire. Or conversely, worrying about some other mythical future time, when we have lost all that gives our lives savour.

No, it is Now that matters. It is the present that we should be concerned with. Only the present moment is sacred, and whether we are in grief or in joy or in gratitude or in despair, we need to pay attention. Which can be hard, if the present moment is a difficult one. But I find comfort in the belief which C.S. Lewis explains in The Screwtape Letters, that we will be given the inner strength to deal with whatever joy or sorrow comes our way, in the present. But not the strength to cope with worrying about possible future alternatives, most of which will probably not happen.

So as we enter this season of Advent, may we remember that happiness is an inside job, that it is within our power to experience our lives moment by moment. I love the lines in Rumi's famous poem, The Guesthouse: "Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all."

I believe that this is the route to true happiness - the ability to appreciate what we have today, now, this minutes. For very little lasts forever. And we need to also accept that most events will happen anyway, whether or not we anticipate them with joy, wait for them with impatience, or actively dread their arrival. Truly, happiness is an inside job.