Day 211 (Two-Hundred & Eleven) of 365 days
For the longest time, I believed that there’s only one purpose in life: And that is to be happy. Right? Why else go through all the pain and hardship? It’s to achieve happiness in some way. And I’m not the only person who believed that. In fact, if you look around you, most people are pursuing happiness in their lives. That’s why we collectively buy shit we don’t need, go to bed with people we don’t love, and try to work hard to get the approval of people we don’t like.
Why do we do these things? To be honest, I don’t care what the exact reason is. I’m not a scientist. All I know is that it has something to do with history, culture, media, economy, psychology, politics, the information era, and you name it. The list is endless.
If you ask the average person today what they want out of life, the majority will tell you that they want to be happy. If you dig deeper into what they mean, they’ll tell that they want to feel good and comfortable and be at ease. On the surface, that sounds innocent enough, but the reality is that this pursuit of happiness is actually the cause of much of our misery. The notion that pleasure and contentment are the solutions to all of life’s problems, and that once you acquire these states you have everything you need, is misguided at best and dangerous at worst. There is more to life than happiness.
I consider myself a reasonably happy person. On most days, there is a general baseline that I don’t deviate too far away from for too long. I’m quite fortunate in many ways, and I’m more than grateful for that. I have enough. I don’t need to be filthy rich. I don’t care for fame. I’ve come to terms with the fact that comparing myself to others is a waste of time, and I don’t want to get stuck chasing hedonistic temptations for the rest of my life. There is nothing more that I realistically need.
Yet, I write. And when I write, I want it to be good, and I want people to read it. I have my general ambitions, and there are things I want to accomplish. I work quite hard, and it’s not always fun. But if I’m already content, why? Because I know that if I didn’t have any sort of desire for something more, then I would cease to feel content.
My happiness isn’t a product of me getting what I want. It’s the byproduct of the different challenges I have proactively overcome to earn what I want. It’s the expectations I have met or readjusted over time. I need something to work at to get it. If I stopped pursuing things tomorrow, my lingering happiness would escape. Over time, it would cease to mean anything, and I wouldn’t be able to refuel it by simply wishing for more. Due to its fleeting nature, happiness alone isn’t enough.
Happiness isn’t obtained. It’s earned. It’s not the product. It’s the byproduct. For this reason, the idea that some serene state of bliss can be sustained with pleasure and contentment, although seductive, is misguided. Over the long term, it takes more than that. It takes a sense of striving. Gratitude is important, to be sure, and so is being well-adjusted enough to not seek out extrinsic motivators to provide a solution, but these things alone will only take you so far. The real secret is to live a story.
Joy and happiness co-exist for an important reason — to allow us to live a fulfilling life. While happiness is more accountable to our goals, wishes, or desires, joy is a natural instinct and emotion that has always lived within us. External factors and situations will always influence our outlook of happiness and joy, but life is to be lived and to be simply enjoyed. Whether it’s to be happy or to feel joyful, you clearly can’t go wrong with feeling either.
