The Happiness Web

I just finished watching an Oprah episode a little while ago about happiness (Yes, I watch Oprah and I'm in my 20s...so what?! The world is still round! :). The show started off with a test; members of the audience and at-home viewers were asked to judge which of about 5 people presented were the happiest. It was a tough test; all these people we were supposed to judge had smiling faces. It turned out, some who were the happiest ended up having the hardest lives; one lady even lost quite a few people she loved in a short period of 6 months. So, what determined who was happy and who was not? Well, a lot of it had to do with the way they reflected on life, how they defined happiness, and even how they looked at their circumstances. It seems pretty obvious that those three things would play a vital role in keeping happiness alive. But how do you tell people who usually get the shorter end of the stick to tough it out and "think happy thoughts"? It seems unreasonable, so maybe you tell them something else.

One of the guest psychologists on the show claimed that, from his experiences, those who spent a large portion of their time complaining actually tended to fear happiness. He went on to say something to the effect that if someone has a habit of thinking negatively, and not expecting much from life, then they wouldn't have to worry about being let down, since they weren't truly happy to begin with. It was also suggested that happiness shouldn't be tied to an object or person; I guess that's why codependency in a relationship is so destructive. All these facts and suggestions sound valid and believable, but how practical are the pieces of advice, really? Well, it would definitely depend on who's listening. Someone with years of experience in thinking negative would have to be reconditioned. Something probably happened to spark the negative thought life, I'm pretty sure it didn't just randomly spring up on it's own. Sadly, Oprah mentioned that only 26% of the people in her audience during the show were truly happy. If that statistic was supposed to represent the percentage of genuinely happy people in America, then that doesn't say much about the rest of us, and psychologists definitely have their work cutout for them. But I can't help but wonder, why are we so unhappy or generally unsatisfied with our lives?

I can only speak for myself here, but I guess I can say a few things about what I've observed while taking 22 trips around the sun. On the down-side, it seems like the more I actually take the time to study the lives of those around me, the more I want to either stop looking or, quite the opposite, get involved. Sometimes it seems like we only have a few alternatives when it comes to our state of being: We can completely harden our hearts so that they are unmoved by the sadness around us; we can become actively involved and help others while remembering that we can only help a few since we are, in truth, limited human beings; we can get depressed about the fact that we can only do so much; or, we can get so focused on our own problems that we forget about everyone else and, in turn, become even more lonely as a result of our selfish outlook on life. I guess I prefer the second option, but I know my behavior doesn't always reflect this claim of mine.

And so it goes, every day I realize another way that I'm limited: I only have so much money, so much time, blah blah blah...but I also try to remind myself of how I'm actually a lot less limited than a majority of the people who live in this world. Now, I'm not about to tell you kiddos to eat your broccoli because there are starving children in Africa, but I will say this:

It's not wrong to realize your limitations, that's part of our job as humans, but it is wrong to not realize anything else.

And, folks, from what I've noticed, failing to realize that in itself is precisely what contributes to so much unhappiness. It's easy for us to focus on what we don't have; the "compare game" is a big, deceitful trap that makes us lose our way along the happiness path. In realizing your limitations, you're acknowledging that there will be times when you need help from someone else; BUT when you also realize that you still have something to offer in spite of your limitations, well, that's when you can help someone else. And what does that do? That not only gives you a sense of purpose that's essential for happiness, but it also connects you to someone else; companionship promotes acceptance as it scares away the demons of loneliness associated with depression, and it even allows for love's existence. Everyone knows that love is the main ingredient when it comes to cooking up a lifetime batch of true happiness!