The Pursuit of Happiness
“The pursuit of happiness is a matter of choice…it is a positive attitude we choose to express. It is not a gift delivered to our door each morning, nor does it come through the window. And it is certain that our circumstances are not the things that make us joyful. If we wait for them to get just right, we will never laugh again.”
― Charles R. Swindoll
Sticking with the New Year’s resolution theme, I wanted to talk about the pursuit of happiness and how family estrangement and other chronic problems very often get in the way.
I have to begin by saying I am suspicious of chasing happiness. As the saying goes, it seems all too often that happiness is elusive and the more we try to catch some, the less we get. We can try positive thinking, affirmations or prayer. We can meditate, lose weight, find another love/r, get a new job, gain cash, move to a new city, have a baby, get a kitten, buy a car, drink, don’t drink, see a therapist, or don’t … and still we feel empty.
Yet for all the things we may do to force happiness, I have found that many people who are experiencing estrangement are actually pretty preoccupied by unhappiness. I am not sure that they would know what to do if they did catch some happy.
Some of us feel that happiness is out of our reach as long as things are chaotic or turbulent in our relationships. Some of us don’t believe that we deserve happiness. Some of us have been told very clearly by other people that we don’t. Some of us just decided that on our own. Some of us believe an intact family is happiness and we reject anything less than that. Some of us settle for fake happy in the hope that real happy will see our efforts and like a butterfly, land upon our shoulder.
Many of us not only fail to pursue our happiness, we seem to have a knack for sticking with things; relationships, places, people, habits that we are fully aware are counter to our happiness. You might say that if you look at our actions (not our words) that far too many of us are on the anti-pursuit of happiness.
Maybe the pursuit of happiness is at least as much about what we choose to do or not do as it is about chasing after new things, new relationships, new people … or trying to fix broken things, broken people, broken relationships? Perhaps our first task is not to pursue elusive happiness, but to get out of the way of the happiness that is waiting for us the moment we choose to make room and allow it to happen.
What things do you do that you know get in the way of being happy? What relationships are you maintaining or chasing that rob you of peace and happiness? What/who are you busy trying to fix, change, control or manage that you know you really cannot? What would happen if you stopped?
What if the pursuit of happiness is really nothing more than stopping our pursuit of unhappiness?
“What if the pursuit of happiness is really nothing more than stopping our pursuit of unhappiness?”
Brilliant!
I could hug you Fiona for obvious reasons, but to spell it all out you have been as of late authoring more than minor masterpieces of invective. I have found that moving out of the existences of others(toxic people) who I have become entangled with is the most important thing I have done and am doing.
Life is like kayaking, if one upsets in rough water, one needs to struggle to shore, strip, dry one’s clothes, re-organize and move on. The next stretch of rapids one encounters in the journey, it is best first to have learned that it is imperative to it the shore, carefully look for the warning signs of underwater rocks close to the surface, and plan a route around them.
All this is figurative but I know that you and the others here will get what I said.
Always Edward
Pure gold right there! Thank you for this and a wonderful way to start the New Year — Fiona, you definitely have the gift of insight and encouragement, what a treasure!
Yes, Fiona, once the ‘happy’ has disappeared from my everyday life, I know its time to act, cut out or cut back a relationship, leave a volunteer group or just go into the countryside or to the beach and have a really good think.
Bushwalking in quiet, green places is my strength. There is a peace and tranquility in the green expanses and it can make me realise that my usual cheeriness has gone missing. There is nothing more important than preserving your peace.
I also hate hearing myself grumble or whinge about the same thing over and over, and that is when I start cutting back my involvement in the wrong things and increasing the enjoyable things.
Happy new year forever, to you all.
Never went kayaking but I did follow the analogy.
I wanted to get the word happiness as a tattoo last year for my birthday. I didn’t, but the reminder is still there to stop sabotaging my own happiness.
Lots of times we are our own worst enemies.
Always Edward
And we are also our own biggest fans!
We have tremendous power over how loved we allow ourselves to feel (I’m discovering).
True, Sue, and I mean it both ways. We do find it hard though at difficult times in our lives, to be a monumental cheering entity to ourselves, at which time the encouragment of others is the bond to our emotional well being. Consider yourself encouraged, by me, and I would confidently say, by anyone here.
I hope you all know I am here to encourage all of you as well!!!!
It has been such a blessing to find this site and the lovely people who are a part of it!
Sometimes I really wish there was a “like button” in the comment section. There are so many things you people say that I very much do, “like”!
With appreciation,
Fiona
…and of course I would go one step further in being my extreme self, I thing a “love” button would be even better…hmmmmm
With love,
All of us here
Always Edward