Can I tell you a secret?
I’m happy.
It does feel like a secret, something not to be spoken about in polite company. It seems we’ve all got so much better at sharing our trauma, pain, heartbreak, and struggle that I find myself sinking into corners now and saying nothing because, basically, it feels like I have nothing to say that would be of interest.
It feels that no-one would want to know that I am not in trauma, pain, heartbreak or struggle. I don’t have work-stress, or family issues, or anxiety, or any of the other buzzwords that websites I don’t remember signing up to drop into my inbox on a daily basis. Sorry guys, but no, I don’t have those issues.
And when I look back over my past life, I realise that for all the trials and tribulations, I have always been blessed with an easy-enough passage.
I feel as though I shouldn’t actually be saying it, but: I’m content.
I have been, I am, lucky and I am grateful, which is as good a definition of happiness as I need for me.
Maybe if I had a hook to hang my joy upon, a lottery win, a love affair, a career success, something fleeting that the listener could nod wisely at, knowing that it is a momentary thing and that I would soon descend back into their world of hurt…maybe then I could sing my small joys and deep
contentment loudly.
Ah, but then I would be singing a different song. It would be one of transient bliss, of mere moments, the kind that even as we catch them, we think this too will pass.
I admit, I do have such days. Perhaps I have more of them than most. If so, and even if not so, I am grateful for every one that comes along. There is nothing wrong with the transience of bliss, and much to be celebrated in the catching of it.
What I mean by being happy, though, is both deeper and not as profound as that. It is a simple contentment. It is noticing what is and being grateful for it, taking pleasure in it, allowing it to make you smile and laugh. It is noticing what is not and being okay with that, not allowing it to make you frown and fret. Sometimes, to be fair, it is to catch yourself frowning and fretting anyway and trusting your friends to kick you out of that perspective back into the reality of where you are.
For me, it is the recognition that whatever my mood (and moods are whole other area of consideration) the current shape of my life is pretty much what I want it to be.
I sit in writing groups and listen as others tell what they’re willing to share of their personal stories, and all I can think is: how lucky I am, how grateful.
I listen to a good friend expounding on how the world is, from their perspective and that of their peers, and all I can think is: that’s not my reality, that’s not my perception of how the world at large is.
I am human, and my name is not Pollyanna, so my journals are littered with all the pettier perturbs of ordinariness. The aspects that are not perfect, things (experiences) I still yearn for, my own failings and mis-steps. But they do also sing of all the beautiful experiences and people and things that I have around me.
Yes, things. We hear so much about how we all have too much stuff. Guilty as charged, your honour. I do have too much stuff and I am still very slowly divesting myself of some of it. At the same time though, I look around my rooms and think to myself: yes, I like that. I remember how or when I acquired some things. I think of who bought them for me if they were gifts. I think on why I like them – whether for their intrinsic beauty or their usefulness or my connection to whence or from whom they came.
Not all stuff is just stuff.
Stuff doesn’t make you happy. I suspect we need to be already happy before we can really appreciate ‘stuff’ – the stuff we choose to keep, once we’ve decided we’ve got too much and have started letting go of the surplus.
I wish I had a story to tell. Something that might make people feel that I have “earned” these days of plenty.
You know the kind of thing: overcoming adversity, surviving hardship or evil or disaster.
Nope, can’t claim any of that. The truth is that I have had an easy-ish life and I love where I have ended up.
Nor can I tell you I have found the elixir of eternal youth. I wish I could say that I leap out of bed every morning full of the joys of spring and with an energy that belies my years. The truth is that only applies on some mornings. Others I crawl out feeling every day of my age, and then some.
I wish I could say that I have left the urban life behind and moved to some coastal idyll or mountain retreat. Not true. I still live in suburbia.
Whenever I read in the magazines or on the web, or I watch the programmes on TV, about the people who are living the dream, it’s always a BIG AUDACIOUS dream. They’ve massively transformed their existence, taken huge risks to follow their passions. We have to admire that. We have to take inspiration from that.
But we don’t necessarily have to do that.
We can follow smaller dreams. I know. Because I do.
When my everything was up-ended in 2018 – partly by choice, largely by a seismic shift I hadn’t anticipated – I figured it was an opportunity to completely redesign my day-to-day, to actually take a blank sheet & design the life I wanted. Not many of us get that opportunity.
Don’t worry. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t work. Lives are not designed, they evolve.
My “design” imploded under its own weight.
With the help of a good friend and an amazing coach, I abandoned the plan and stepped into what some call synchronicity. Others talk about Kairomancy. Some talk about living in the moment. Whatever it is, this stop-planning-&-follow-your-instincts is what has brought me to where I
am.
It brought me to Tai Chi and the two brilliant teachers I now have, who teach very differently and between them confuse me just as much as they edge me forward.
It brought me to swimming every weekday that I can manage. Swimming better than I have ever done before. Not further or faster, but better. More focussed, more controlled, more conscious. More enjoyably.
It brought me to poetry of all things. From I’m not creative, through ok,maybe I can write a little, but I’m not a poet, through what if I chooseto believe that I am, to putting my words into the wild with my fingers crossed that maybe they can fly.
It brought me back to the dance. It brought me to the Rope. It brought me to a garden.
Why should it be so hard to say all this, to simply say: I’m really happy. My life is great is right now. Let me tell you about…?
Why should it be so hard to say: I know the world is full of pain, but if you look it is also full of wisdom and beauty and hope?
We have learned how to empathise with pain and sorrow. We know how to respond to the friend who is hurting. It seems to me, that somewhere along the way we lost our knack for being compassionate (co-feeling) with those experiencing success, and growth, and contentment. We can fake our fellow-feeling for the“highs” of achievement that will sink back into the sea of normality, but to feel a genuine glow for those who are ’simply happy’ for no apparent reason other than the sudden or slow realisation that they are actually living the dream, that the previous problem was that they hadn’t figured out precisely what the dream was / is: that’s a tougher call.
It is hard because it requires us to look at our own dream, and how close to or far from it we are. It is hard because it requires us to love the people who are succeeding where we might not be. It is hard because it causes us to question our path and to either recommit to it, or shift lanes completely.
Supporting people in pain simply requires us to be human. All we need to do is imagine ourselves in their place, to remember it if we have been there, to be grateful if we are not there right now and even more so if we never were. We can deal with other people’s pain because it is (from our perspective) imagined. We can do what we would want others to do for us. The boundary point is that we do not envy them.
There may be times when the sufferer is so close to us, a lover perhaps or a child, that we would willingly swap places with them, but we do not envy them their suffering. We would not want it for its own sake.
When we are asked to share in joy, however, it becomes complicated. We may see danger in the reasons for their happiness, or we may see it in the simple fact of their being happy and the possibility that it may not last. If the reason for their pleasure is something we wish for ourselves and have not attained, there will be envy to contend with.
When we see someone in pain, we are clear that what we wish, whole-heartedly, is for their suffering to end. When we see someone in joy, we are often less-than-whole-hearted in our wish that it never end.
In trying to navigate the complexity, we often fail to respond with compassion, with fellow-feeling. And, sadly, the message that sends is that we’re not allowed to shout our joys out loud.
I know it is hard, when you are in pain, to hear that others are being successful, healthy, joyful, living the dream whatever their dream even if it’s not yours and you wouldn’t swap places with your last breath…but if we don’t, if we don’t allow the happy to share their joy, their success, their simple contentment in their life as it is, then we are distorting our own view of the world, we are looking through the lens of pain and sorrow and shame and guilt, all of the time. Those things have their place, but they cannot be the whole of what we witness.
We must also bear witness to beauty. We must bear witness to simple successes. We must bear witness to every small dream that is achieved (provided always that it is not at the expense of
pain to others). We must bear witness that sometimes a life is nothing special, except in that it is a happy one.
I ask you: if you are happy, say so. Share the reasons for it.
I ask you: if someone does something to make you happy, be happy for it, for them.
I ask you: spread the joy. The world is in sore need of it.
My friend told me that if we are fortunate enough to be fortunate, then our responsibility is to live it well. To enjoy it, to savour it, to use it in service if we can, but above all not to feel guilty about the luck or fortune or happiness, not to ever reject a blessing.
