It’s Not About Hap­pi­ness

Look­ing for Mr. Goodbar

A few months back, I was read­ing an arti­cle in Shamb­hala Sun. I’d have to go dig­ging to come up with who was being inter­viewed. I def­i­nitely remem­ber it was a female Bud­dhist, and the ques­tion had to do with how come she seemed so happy. She replied that, “… I’m actu­ally a cheer­ful melan­cho­liac.†I really res­onated with that.

I can’t remem­ber how many years I’ve spent think­ing I should be happy, what­ever that means.

What I’ve come to real­ize is that I’m not par­tic­u­larly happy per­son, accord­ing to the clas­si­cal def­i­n­i­tion. I was recently read­ing an arti­cle that talked about some cut­ting edge brain research that sug­gests a bet­ter than 50% of mood is genetic in origin—in other words, we are pro­grammed from birth with a predilec­tion toward a cer­tain mood or way of see­ing and being in the world.

I sup­pose one could argue that since every­one knows that hap­pi­ness is the way we’re sup­posed to be, that I should be exert­ing a ton of energy to be happy. And yes, I could cer­tainly do that. I’d fail, but I could do that.

It seems more log­i­cal to me to sim­ply accept that “the way it is, is the way it is.†In this way, I can work with who I am, as opposed to fight­ing my nature as I try to be what soci­ety wants me to be.

This was what was so appeal­ing about the com­ment regard­ing cheer­ful melan­cho­lia. She was mak­ing what might seem like a small distinction—that there is a dif­fer­ence between cheer­ful and happy. I’d like to sug­gest this is prob­a­bly accu­rate. And one dis­tinc­tion I’m aware of is that cheer­ful is an inter­nally gen­er­ated state, whereas hap­pi­ness is often a comparison.

We are trained from birth and inun­dated with adver­tis­ing mes­sages that all have to do with hap­pi­ness. We think we know what hap­pi­ness is, despite sel­dom expe­ri­enc­ing it. For most, it’s a goal to be achieved some time in the future, and some­how the future never arrives—which is pretty obvi­ous, when you think about it. As opposed to liv­ing in the now, where things are as they are.

It was sort of my point in last week’s arti­cle. I was sug­gest­ing notic­ing what’s going on in the world with­out get­ting your shorts in a knot. It’s not about whin­ing about how things are—rather, it’s about accept­ing things exactly as they are, and mov­ing on from there. I was there­fore amused when I received an e-mail from a woman I know, who won­dered, “Read your blog today and won­dered how your summer’s going and if you’ve taken some time away.†I wrote back and asked her if she thought I needed a hol­i­day. She has yet to reply.

I rec­og­nize that when I judge myself—as lack­ing, as unhappy, as anx­ious, as “cir­cling the drain,†I’m really just delay­ing deal­ing with what’s actu­ally hap­pen­ing. In other words, judg­ment is, 100% of the time, noth­ing more than a stalling tac­tic. Looks good, accom­plishes zip. The dubi­ous reward? All those around you cheer and con­grat­u­late you on how self reflec­tive you are. Yeah, right.

Much bet­ter to relent­lessly drop the judg­ments. For exam­ple, Dar­bella and I were sit­ting today, and toward the end I felt what I might describe as energy and tight­ness in my chest. As soon as this feel­ing came up, my ego/mind kicked in, and I heard myself think­ing, “Why are you get­ting so anx­ious?†I’m rather proud of myself for not bit­ing on that one. I saw the game my mind was playing—the judg­ment game—and I smiled and let it go. The feel­ing in my chest was there until I stood up at the end of zazen, and then faded, as all feel­ings do. Had I gone to “fig­ur­ing out†my anx­i­ety, I’d likely still be in a pickle three hours later. What a waste of time and energy.

I sug­gest, as I always do, that you pay atten­tion to your think­ing, and espe­cially to your judg­ments. Feel­ings come, feel­ings go, and judg­ments change noth­ing. In fact all they really do is delay or elim­i­nate the pos­si­bil­ity of being in the moment.

Or, I sup­pose, I could just pre­tend to be happy, on hol­i­day, and tuned out. I’d likely fit in a heck­uva lot better.

I’m just glad that’s not, nor never has been, my goal.