Defining happiness: A memoir✨✨
Happiness means different things to different people. It could be the time you laughed so hard you could barely breathe. It could be every time you feel radiant, bubbly and joyful. It could be as simple as just smiling. All this boils down to the idea that there is no one meaning of happiness.
My focus in this piece is to take you through my change of perspective with regards to happiness over the course of my life.
Since I was little until a little over a year ago, my perspective towards happiness has always been as if it’s a destination. Why? You may ask. Let me explain. I have lived with my parents for most parts of my life, besides when I was attending boarding school and now at Duke. Over the years, I have always admired the idea of freedom of autonomy and the allure of being independent has always fascinated me. As such, at the end of each milestone in my life, I have always viewed happiness as a reward at the end of a tumultuous journey of hard work. This happiness I was foreseeing was just the idea of moving closer and closer to my dream of autonomy. Weird right??? Not to say, I didn’t have wonderful moments all through my younger years…I am getting to that.
Fast forward to my current self, working on this assignment as I reminisce all the experiences, I had all through my life and wondering why I didn’t take a step back and really marvel and what was happening at that time. To be fair…I am still maturing and it’s all dawning on me how many good times I had.
Basically, it all dawned to me what it really means to be happy fairly recently. Closer to the end of the fall semester last year while I was studying remotely from Kenya, I started thinking about the idea of leaving my parents, relatives, friends and so many other people to join another community with different cultures, experience a new environment and most importantly experience autonomy. I wondered why I didn’t really feel a huge sense of joy as would be expected having marveled at autonomy for so long.
Then came the thoughts of the great moments I had with my parents and friends, and the idea of leaving resulted in a myriad of feelings. Anxiety, a little sadness as well excitement filled my heart as I contemplated departing. It was at this moment that I realized that happiness is what you make of the life you are currently living. It is not a destination, but a journey filled with great moments and joy with people. I realized that it is the simple things that matter, having fun with friends, indulging in interesting conversations with colleagues or even parents, and the mishaps that come with it.
In conclusion, even as you pursue your goals, make memories, have fun, and remain joyful while doing so.
# Image used as post header was obtained from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/662240320180133620/
Great, reflective, introspective post, Robertson! I think the realization you arrived at -- that happiness isn't necessarily a destination -- might be quite common for young adults...I know I went through something similar myself.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it has anything to do with how we conceptualize adulthood? How we venerate it? Your post made me think about how, when I was younger, we would get so excited about birthdays, because they meant we were one year older and could do "something" new. For example, turning 13 meant you were offically a teenager; you could get a learner's permit to drive at 15; at 16 you could get a driver's license...there was always something "bigger and better" just out of reach, something that made the present not as appealing...but adolescence in particular is so full of change, and adulthood seems so stable (Hah! Far from it!) that maybe it's a sort of defense mechanism....? I'm not sure any of that made sense, but I definitely agree with you that our society (and I'm coming from a Western perspective) seems to be focused on the future and always looking ahead and doesn't always celebrate being present, in the moment. Which doesn't seem very healthy, does it...?
It doesn't. Dr Rogers during her Koru Mindfulness session during my Ethics class today mentioned the importance of being mindful of what happens around you and appreciate it.
DeleteI love the introspective nature of this piece. It's a realization I made recently too and I'm curious too like Dr. Andres if whether something in our childhood influences this sense that happiness is viewed as a destination rather than the journey, I remember I always thought that happiness was making my parents proud by always achieving that 4.0 GPA or getting into Duke. But once I achieved those goals, I never felt finished, maybe for that brief day or two of euphoria I felt a genuine shot of happiness, but I always felt like afterward, I looked for the next big step. Like Dr. Andres, I wonder if this is innate in us or if it's something we can change as a society. Because honestly, this goal-oriented happiness can cause many adolescents sadness and depression at a young age before they have even confronted the real world and it's really unfortunate what poor mental health could do to a young child. I hope we evolve as a society from this and I'm glad you wrote about it.
ReplyDeleteAmazing deduction. I agree with your analysis especially with the idea of goal-oriented happiness being somewhat a societal issue and whether something can be done to mitigate that is a whole other topic that needs to be addressed.
DeleteI appreciate the introspective nature of the piece as well as your descriptions of your changes of perspective. I would definitely agree that freedom and autonomy itself cannot provide happiness. In fact, a particular marxist critique of western liberalism is that the freedoms it provides is empty, or in Marx's own words "the liberty of man regarded as an isolated monad, withdrawn into himself...It leads every man to see in other men, not the realization, but rather the limitation of his own liberty."
ReplyDeleteWhile Marx's solution to this problem (the abolition of ALL liberal freedoms, and replacing them with "communist" freedoms) was simply nonsensical and wouldn't work, he was definitely insightful in identifying the problem in the first place. Marx would agree with you that it is relationships with other people that brings us happiness; in this sense, other individuals are not obstacles to our happiness, but are rather necessary for our happiness.