04.28.08
Finding Happiness?
I was feeling sorry for myself, too sorry, so I decided to surf the web a bit, looking for articles on the topic of “marriage and happiness,” and then after that just “happiness.”
What I read surprised me. I mean, I am familiar with most of the principles I read. But it’s so easy to forget these essential principles and stray from the path. Meaning, it’s easy for one to get sucked up into the vortex of being so concerned for one’s own happiness.
On this page, I found the following excerpt quite provocative:
Everyone thinks happiness is to be found in objects and experiences. Everyone thinks, “If I could only attain certain objects, if I could only possess them, if I could experience them, I will get happiness.” In spite of countless disappointments and disillusionments, man never learns. There is not an iota of happiness in earthly objects. No object is perfect. They do not have in them the power or ability to give you lasting happiness or joy because they are finite and they are imperfect. Otherwise, they must be able to give a homogeneous state of happiness to all beings at all times under all conditions. But what do you actually see?
If you like milk and you take a glass full of sweetened milk flavored with spices, the first glass may give you satisfaction. And if you are pressed upon to take another glass, the second glass may give satisfaction, but it is not the same degree of happiness or pleasure as was the first glass. And if your stomach is already full with two glasses of milk, if you try to take a third glass of milk, it becomes unpleasant, it becomes undesirable. And if it is forced upon you, a fourth glass of milk produces nausea and you will have to throw it up. Where then is real happiness?
At this stage in my life, I am a fairly consistent adherent to the notion that material objects don’t bring happiness. Here’s my ranking, in order of importance, of the things that matter in this world.
- Family, friends, other people
- Nature / The environment
- Money and material stuff
So while in my day to day life over the past several years, I’ve kept on repeating to myself how my happiness doesn’t depend on whether I drive a shiny, new Porsche or a beat-up old Honda—despite this accomplishment of mine, I’ve somehow forgotten how the pursuit of hedonism is no less a chimera.
I’ve been dissatisfied with my sex life of late—there hasn’t really been much of one. But I’ve been a fool to have thoughts along the lines of, “If I get divorced, I could have all the nasty sex I wanted and I’d be happier for it.”
This page’s tone was a little overly religious for me, but I liked this excerpt a lot:
The second secret weapon [for being content when circumstances make us feel miserable] is to turn our obsession to satisfy ourselves into love for others. Rather than focus on others, too many Christians have bought into the cultural value of individualism. We think personal independence is so great that we no longer recognize the beauty and blessing of shared life. But Christianity is concerned with interdependence. God doesn’t tell us to live for our own convenience. One reason he puts us in marriages is to help us find real satisfaction and real joy in serving others. Marriage is the first place where we get to live out God’s many commands for serving, accepting, encouraging, forgiving and submitting to one another.
OK, if you can cut through the (as I see it, unnecessary) references to God, there’s an excellent point being made here: people are too intent on trying to make themselves happy by finding ways to please themselves. I will agree that greater happiness is to be found by thinking less of oneself and thinking more of how to make life better for other people.
Finally, this page cited some interesting research: when you’re unhappily married, there’s no evidence that divorce will make you happier.
I have to learn to live less for myself and my own petty concerns and more for others. I find that when I have a lot of anxiety (what if I get sick? what if I die?), I just try to tell myself, “So what? We all die someday, the world will go on without us. Just try to do your personal best every day, and that’s all you can do.” Even as I type these words, a baby is being abused, a woman is being raped, somebody has lost their home. I’m getting pretty fucking tired of my selfishness. Which reminds me, a cousin of mine in New York had a stroke a couple of months ago and I haven’t even written her yet. Part of the delay is fear and anxiety (what should I say?) but the other part is just pure selfishness and excessive self-involvement.
