Arcanum

Even though the alarm was set slightly later than usual in an attempt to promote sleeping in, I found myself wide awake well before I was to meet a friend for our Sunday morning run.  Rising sooner than planned can feel like a gift sometimes, stealing a few extra minutes at the dawn of the day while everyone else in my world is still dreaming, or maybe lazily rubbing the sleep out of their eyes in a groggy haze. 

The windows are wide open in celebration of the respite we’ve been enjoying recently from this summer’s grueling heat. The sound of ringing church bells floats inside on the coat tails of the breeze, signaling the imminent commencement of the next mass.  

The bells are a happy reminder that some constants in life endure, just a few short notes to ground us in time and place. The clock in my grandparents’ home chimed every fifteen minutes with a timbre evocative of the traditional Catholic mass.  Moving into our home ten years ago, the discovery that our new neighborhood nestled within earshot of the bells of a small abbey was a boon.  I became immediately accustomed to the cadence, able to mark time without the need for a clock.  I found myself tracking stretches tending to my garden and the pace of my running to their reliable ring.

Deciding to spend my extended Sunday morning on the blog, the church bells reminded me that someone recently asked me to write about happiness.  It’s a topic I’ve wanted to tackle, albeit a cryptic one in that it seems elusive to so many and has the same meaning to so few. 

I think happiness is misconstrued. We talk about finding a husband to “make” us happy or complete us.  We defer, saying that we’ll be happy when a fixed set of expectations are met or specific events occur. We define happiness by the approval of others and validation that our choices are accepted by the masses. In fact, we need this substantiation so badly, we’ll push our true passions to the side in favor of the course of action we deem safe and accepted in the eyes of others.

My behavior as a college student on the dating scene is unfortunately and embarrassingly illustrative of everything not to do when it comes to happiness.  I thought the only way the road to happiness could be paved was with a man at my side.  My usual approach to dating was to let the guy run the show.  I deferred most, if not all, decisions about what we did and where we went to him so as to give him no reason not to like me, and even when I realized maybe he wasn’t so great, I’d stay until he eventually broke up with me.  Nowhere in this equation did I ever really consider what I wanted.  Is anyone surprised I was miserable?

We spend a lot of time giving over control of our happiness to others in hopes that pleasing them is the way to be happy with ourselves.

Happiness, to me, works like a fulcrum.  It’s about having a really steady base so that you’re free to move about in any direction the world takes you and confident to take yourself any place you want to go. It’s different for everyone because we all require and expect different levels of support to feel comfortable in our decisions, our worth, and ultimately in our skin itself.  Striking the right balance is how we make ourselves happy, and no one else can do it for us.

I consider myself to be happy in my career because I have what feels like the right amount of support and backing from my company along with the perfect level of freedom and empowerment in my work and development.  I am tentative at times with parenting because the scaffolding I’m on top of doesn’t seem strong enough.  I’m reluctant to wade into the dating pool because my past experience in relationships tells me I can expect little to no support and suffocating restriction when it comes to following my dreams.

So, you might look at that assessment of the three major buckets of my life and say I’m marginally happy at best.  But you’d be wrong.  I’m really happy. And here’s why:  I believe I am responsible for and capable of creating my own happiness.  I view happiness not as a destination, but as a constant companion on the journey. I define my happiness in my own terms. I respect the sheer impossibility of the notion that every aspect of my life can be great all the time. 

It’s okay to be happy with yourself if you’re still single at 35, if you think you might not be in the right job, if your mom wants to be a grandmother but you don’t want a baby until your career is more established, if you’ve ever found yourself at the police station picking up your errant teenagers. . .   The list goes on.

To get to this place requires a willingness to really pay attention to what’s good.  We always seem to focus on what’s not going right. A few years ago when I was on my self-help book kick, I read a resounding analogy about how getting every facet of your life to go right at the same time was like trying to stuff an octopus completely under your bed.  At least one arm is always flopping out. When you accept that reality, it takes a lot of the pressure off.

A top priority every day of my life is to do or notice at least one thing that makes me happy or plant a seed of happiness for the future. It might be my morning run, a warm cup of ridiculously overpriced boutique coffee, gushing ebulliently with my son over our shared obsession with art supply stores, the pacific and nostalgic toll of church bells, or a few minutes to write a really juicy blog post that I just know will make someone in cyberspace laugh or cry or do a little of both. 

One of my most cherished cards of the past holiday season bore this message:   “Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” ― Guillaume Apollinaire

Now that’s someone who’s on the road to solving the mystery of happiness.

Blogger’s note:  If you’ve tried unsuccessfully in the past to post a comment, you might want to try again.  The problem appears to be fixed.  Thanks Aimee  ;-)