The Pursuit of Happiness

How does every modern fairy tale end?  Happily ever after.  Not so in many of the original versions such as those by the Brothers Grimm prior to their Disney makeovers.  The same is true for so many modern Hollywood films, television shows, and novels.

Our culture suggests that happiness is the natural state of the human condition and creates and expectancy that it can and should be consistently present in our day to day lives.  Furthermore, the absence of happiness is viewed as unnatural and individuals lacking happiness are seen as having failed to achieve something.  Our culture (indeed we as individuals) seeks to correct these failings.  Self-help programs, group therapy, pharmaceuticals, are all aimed at tipping the scales.  We seek to replace negative feelings with positive ones, which calls into question whether the positive can exist in any meaningful way without a counterpart.  How would we know we are happy?

The myth of continual happiness is further obstructed by the element of control, a simple cause and effect argument.  We can’t control other human beings and often other circumstances in our immediate environment.  Therefore, we spend a great deal of time reacting to things we have no way to direct.  Must we react only in the positive?  Is that achievable or is it a setup for failure causing a further downward spiral?

I had the good fortune to visit a friend’s theatre company last weekend and see a production of Lucinda Coxon’s play, Happy Now?  It’s a British import having premiered at the Royal National Theatre with an American premiere at Yale Repertory http://tinyurl.com/happynowreview.  Minus the dialects, the play’s message is universal.  It explores the painstaking side of the pursuit of happiness.  Specifically, the story follows its female protagonist through her numerous exhausting roles as caregiver to a dying father, mother to her two children, wife, and full-time businesswoman shouldering a workload that includes covering for her ailing boss.  At one point she utters to her husband, “I’m everything to you?  I’m everything to everyone.  I want to be everything to no one for twenty minutes.”

One of the most successful plot conventions is that it explores some of the supposed hallmarks of happiness, those that are assumed to make you happy but occasionally leave you unfulfilled.  These include marriage, parenting, career, and sexual intimacy.  The trappings of such pursuits within the play turn ugly as the characters become alcoholics, workaholics, adulterers, perfectionists… all in an effort to find greater happiness outside their current existence. 

The idea of measuring and qualifying happiness has also been on my mind a lot lately.  The wife of a friend of mine in New York was recently published in The New York Times responding to a Wall Street Journal article by famed novelist, poet, and essayist, Erica Jong http://tinyurl.com/motherjong.  One could argue that Jong has suggested there is a right way to parent in the modern era – specifically for women.  As my friend Jillian responded http://tinyurl.com/jongresponse, Jong attempts to set the social agenda for new mothers by blaming those engaged in attachment-parenting for pursuing bonds with their children that provide them happiness, choosing instead to label such pursuits as mere guilt.  Jong asserts that women are controlled by their role as mothers rather than being fulfilled by it.  Must we judge what brings happiness to a parent by debasing it in the name of feminism?  Jong ends the article suggesting “there are no rules,” but she implies otherwise in her condemnation of those finding the greatest happiness by forging their own path despite the judgment of modern society.

Simultaneously, my brother-in-law posted two articles to Facebook suggesting that parents tend to rationalize their decision to raise children in every conceivable way in the name of happiness or momentary highs http://www.slate.com/id/2274721/.  He also pointed to an article that suggested children with siblings are less happy than only children http://tinyurl.com/ukhappinessstudy.  First, it should be noted that my brother-in-law has no children nor is he married or in a significant relationship.  Secondly, the fact that he is my brother-in-law divulges that he was not an only child.  He was raised alongside my wife by a single mother and he experienced some significant periods of unhappiness along the way.

These posts interested me primarily for two reasons.  They both relate to the conditions under which happiness or lack of happiness is likely to exist.  I think that they suggest happiness is conditional given the environmental surroundings and motivations of others (i.e. siblings compete for attention; parents experience large amounts of dissatisfaction in exchange for momentary happiness). Also, I feel the articles weigh happiness by comparison.  That is they take groups (siblings, only children, parents, non-parents) and pit them against each other to measure happiness.  I find the whole thing very disturbing to assert that people should pursue or avoid what makes them happy based on the experience or opinion of others. 

Like Jong, my brother-in-law seems to be seeking validation of his own life decisions and circumstances by blaming his childhood and the modern convention of parenting.  The grass is always greener.  I found it hypocritical.  I hope I don’t have to justify my happiness by pointing out that others who make different decisions in life are less happy.  I used a job seeking analogy to think further about this.  Some people switch jobs because they think another role or another company or another industry will be more fulfilling.  Others seek a job that will pay more because they feel more money will lead to greater fulfillment.  Still others seek jobs that give them greater flexibility and time off, possibly leading to early retirement in the hope that a lack of work will bring them fulfillment.  In each case, the job seeker looks elsewhere for fulfillment rather than finding it in his/her present situation.  I’ve been guilty of that before.  It’s a slippery slope.

Thomas Jefferson initially drafted the Declaration of Independence with the phrase “life, liberty and property.”  He later edited it to read “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Why the change?  Scott Amorian examines it here http://tinyurl.com/declarehappiness.  He concludes that human beings have a natural, instinctive pursuit of happiness because we are living things.  The pursuit of happiness is a natural right because if someone denied you the ability to act with respect to your desire for happiness, you would be harmed.  Therefore to be truly independent, an individual must be free to pursue happiness.  It is also worth noting the difference between being granted a right and being promised happiness itself.

To me, the pursuit of happiness is a desire to find pleasure in given circumstances rather than the absence of something greater.  It involves hope and humility, faith and affirmation, confidence and tolerance.  With these values embraced, an individual is free to forgo control and anticipate joy without expectation, choosing instead to appreciate the present.  Carpe Diem.