Where'd your slice of happiness disappear to?
A number of years ago, I remember my momma telling me that I’d been such a happy-go-lucky kid. I can’t recall exactly what that particular conversation had been about but this single remark had remained emblazoned in my memory for some reason.
It’s not such a startling comment if you think about it. I’m a fairly jovial and often whimsical kind of person. Admittedly though, remaining ever-candescent and always light-hearted over the years has felt more like waging war against an expertly-trained Russian warlord when all you’ve been equipped with is a bubblegum pink plastic fairy wand.
I’ve been told time and time again that growing up means facing the harsh realities of what it is the be human. It’s not always sunshine and rainbows they say. Well, I’ve had a solid forecast of hurricanes and hailstorms with gale-force winds that have time and time again knocked me completely off course into shark-infested waters with absolutely no sign of even a glimmer of blue skies. And mind you I don’t even know how to swim (yes, for realsies) nevermind how to fend off an apex predator.
So what happens when you wake up one day with disillusionment seeping through your skin and derision for your childhood fantasies ringing in your ears?
You probably scream in terror hoping for the nightmare to come to an end. You hide under the covers and wait out the boogeyman who seems to have surreptitiously sprung up from the hidden crevices that lay beneath your bed. You shout with all your might for a gallant passerby to come save you unknowingly oblivious to the fact that we’re all pretty much haunted by the same spell of the harsh realities of life.
I know I’ve painted a frighteningly dark picture that you have no care for amidst the sparkling veneer of social media and streaming services, but like it or not I don’t think my outlook is in the minority.
I think that there are many of us out there who have realised that life is anything but a dream.
As we try to shake off the dazed slumber that we’ve been in, there’s a question that’s possibly crossed your mind a few times. Or not. Maybe you’re still peacefully wandering through the smoke and mirrors yet to be vexed by the cold realness of the world. In that case, call me when if hits. I’ll be sure to also bring along my popcorn.
Can you make yourself happy?
Dare I say yes. Will I be harpooned like a humpback whale in pursuit of my blubber for blurting such out ludicrous and outlandish statements? Probably. But what’s another stray dagger when you’re an inevitable moving target.
After a tumultuous three decades of meandering through this Earth, I’m now nearing the conclusion that happiness is not the spontaneous and serendipitous sensation that sporadically manifests purely by happenstance.
Now my degrees are in Science and Engineering so I don’t claim to have any sound academic basis for my proposition and it’s something I’m still in the process of fully formulating but act like a grizzly and bear with me.
For the longest time, we’ve been led to believe that happiness is a profoundly joyful feeling that befalls a person mostly by chance. Put simply, good stuff happens and it makes you’re happy.
But what happens when bad stuff happens? Are we expected to remain solemn with despair and merely wait for good stuff to happen to feel happy again?
What if there’s a global recession with widespread impacts so dire that entire economies collapse? What if your country is under the regime of a wholly corrupt political party that will never be overthrown? What if you get diagnosed with leukaemia 2 months away from your ultimate spring wedding?
The wait and see game sounds stupid to me. Nothing is certain and life bears more resemblance to a game of Russian roulette than logic and fairness.
So why not go hunt down your happiness instead of peaking through the covers to see if it’s arrived yet?