“The pursuit of happiness.” Has any other cliche caused more people to engage in more ineffective activities? I believe I just heard a resounding, “What in the world is wrong with pursuing happiness?” Let us take a look at that.
Webster’s dictionary defines “pursue” as something we “try to find, get or win.” That implies external activities, external pursuits in the quest for happiness, in this instance.
I seriously suggest that any external search for attaining happiness will fail.
Happiness is an attitude, a state of mind and degree of acceptance. Those are subjective, internal experiences. Externals can help us attain these internal states; however, dependence on external occurrences, including other people, means our happiness is dependent on factors beyond our control. That is not a healthy basis for long-term happiness.
Some argue that prolonged happiness is simply a sign that a person is not being realistic. But happiness also involves allowing ourselves to be happy. Happiness need not depend on outer conditions. Hugh Prather has an excellent quote about this. “When I realized that things did not have to go right for me to be happy. And, people did not have to behave for me to love them. Then, my walk home became much easier.”
I strongly agree with him.
We can set up an internal state of being that recognizes the external happenings as events that we interact with. We can exert control over some of the events. Others we can exert no control over. And still other events are random. Like the Serenity Prayer, we can learn to “Have the patience to accept the things we cannot change. The courage to change those things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Everything won’t go our way all the time. Certainly an interesting life serves us its share of uncertainty and challenge. Death is an inevitable part of life. Pain and suffering happen to most of us. However, are any of these normal parts of life anything that should permanently derail our happiness? Not if our happiness rests on a solid internal foundation. We can and should be happy simply because we are alive.
Our lives are partially the result of heredity, but mostly the result of our decisions. We choose to exercise and eat a balanced diet or not. We choose to have a strong social support network or not. We choose to be primarily optimistic or not. We can also choose happiness. If all we ever do is pursue it, we’ll end up old and wondering what went wrong.
Tim O’Brien writes continuing-education courses and presents seminars on stress management.
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