A Year of Complete Happiness?

Cathal Morrow has an interesting theory. "happy / unhappy are entirely unrelated," he writes, "happiness is a permanent state in us all, if we allow it to be."

He's testing his theory in a different sort of happiness project, called a year of complete happiness. His goal is to find the happiness that exists in every single moment, rather than continually seek happiness elsewhere. In a way, his project is very similar to Gretchen Rubin's, except his is a little more philosophical.

I can't help but wonder if Cathal is right. Is happiness a permanent state?

I've always believed that our permanent state is neutral, and it's up to our actions to boost ourselves up or down. But if Cathal is right, we ought to appreciate our "default settings" more.

Just for kicks, I'm posting a picture of the newest additions to my "cute" collection. My owl mug, and two kokeshi dolls. :)

Reconciliation

Happiness is the art of reconciling who you are, with who you wish you were.

Or, we can think of it as the art of balancing dream with reality. Sometimes in order to be happy it is necessary to pretend our dreams are real.

I keep reading that happiness requires being "present in the moment," that it is impossible for people to imagine a future in which they actually would be happy--because future imaginings exclude rationalization, that often the anticipation of the future is better than the future itself. (This is coming, not only from Gretchen, but also from Stumbling on Happiness by Dr. Gilbert)


I've been told so many times lately, "That's not reality. You have to get back to reality." People say it sympathetically, or pityingly, or even condescendingly. I haven't written much because it made me so sad to think about being stuck in reality. Really, I'm not ready to grow up.

I keep thinking of myself as a little girl. Imagination was my life then. And though a nagging voice tells me that's because I had no life, I know that it's not really true. I think about all the books we read as children, the classics, and how every single child there had a rich dream world they escaped to. Why-- when we start to grow up-- why do we lose that? What if we kept our dream worlds and we, too, could escape to them when we needed to, just like when we were kids?

Then, if we held onto our dreams, we could pick and choose our lives. In our dreams, we know exactly who we want to be, and nothing is impossible. Personally, when I close my eyes and imagine a future unbounded by any rules or regulations, I'm a writer, with long brown hair that isn't poofy. I live in a quaint little house with floor to ceiling bookcases and wide windows. When I open my eyes, it's not too hard to think-- okay. So who knows if the house is going to work, and goodness knows the hair is impossible, but the writer thing? All I would have to do is actually write something. And, I have things to write, I just haven't written them yet. If I were to realize even a tiny part of my dream world, it feels like everything in my life would be so much happier.

And that is why I have concluded-- the art of happiness is the art of reconciling who you are with who you wish you were.

Intentions: Part 2

I'm just starting to realize how much more goes into happiness than we are aware of. How do we choose our intentions? What intentions will make us happy? What if an intention isn't enough?

I think that Gretchen must have been on a track with her list of resolutions, but perhaps only because she had so much more of her life figured out than I do. She knew her intentions when she started. She knew what her resolutions would be because she knew when her intentions wouldn't be enough.

I can set the best intentions in the world, and neglect to honor them. I can set the best intentions in the world, and realize that I don't care if I honor them or not.

Happiness Now

Sigh. Back to reality. I've been off the face of the earth for several days now. Not just away from here, but... away from, well, everything. My head's just been somewhere else. I've been happy.

Part of me, a very large part, was rebelling against returning to the reality of cleaning, cooking properly (instead of just microwaving gyoza), getting a normal amount of sleep, doing the work I'm supposed to be doing. I'd rather sit in my little dream bubble, check out of this world and head off to another at the first chance I get. I don't know how many of you can understand this. Maybe I seem crazy. The past week has been like an extended daydream.

Really, I was rebelling against the word should. A little voice in my head, a small voice which was easy to ignore, was telling me that I was destroying everything I've worked for in the past month. But I didn't care. I was tired of doing what I should be doing. If the happiness project is about happiness, and if I'm infinitely happier sitting at home, alone, reading all day, then shouldn't I be doing that instead of forcing myself to go out, forcing myself to work, to clean, to interact? How much of this happiness project is about actual happiness, and how much of it is forcing myself to be the person the world expects me to be?

I was angry.

But, I woke up this morning and I knew the dream bubble was popped. No matter how much I wanted to stay safely inside it, I had to get out. The longer I stayed, the closer I would come to destroying everything in my life. A dream bubble isn't self-sustaining. Eventually, I would have to go out, even if it were just for a breather. But once I did, I would be crushed by the enormity of how everything's changed. It's the difference between happiness now and happiness down the road. Happiness now is the bubble. Happiness later is a career, friends, a clean home, being well-nourished... If I didn't know that I had all those things now, even if I didn't want to deal with them, I wouldn't survive in my bubble. If I stay in my bubble too long, they will disappear, and I won't be happy anymore.

True Happiness, I realized, is about finding the balance between present happiness and future happiness. Without a balance, we're always going to be unhappy--if we're only thinking about the present, we're going to find our options getting smaller and smaller as we cut off future paths for ourselves. But, if we only think about the future, we will constantly be putting off our needs for something intangible. After all, we never actually reach the future-- we always stay in the present.

Team Edward

I can't write for long. I have a date.

With Edward.

I learned something very important this week: Humor yourself. But, I think it's more than that-- you have to be able to laugh at yourself, love yourself, and then humor yourself and support yourself in all your stupid, quirky, little passions that keep life interesting. In my case, I'm trying very hard not to judge myself, because I just started reading Twilight.

Actually, I started reading Twilight yesterday. Today I'm reading New Moon. That's how bad it's gotten. :) Don't worry, I'm not going to start wearing Team Edward or Team Jacob t-shirts (Team Edward), or waiting outside movie theatres for days. But, forgive me if I make a detour on my trip home to stop at Borders and pick up the next installment.

I think we all have things that we love that aren't particularly flattering. Maybe you're a football player who actually likes the ballet classes you're forced to take. Maybe you're a physicist who doesn't actually like science fiction. I happen to be an English Major at an Ivy League university who's in love with so-called trashy plebeian literature (don't get me started. I took all the courses, I will tell you why they're not trashy or plebeian). If I have to tell the truth, my two favorite authors are Sophie Kinsella and J.K. Rowling. Try telling that to your Poetry and Poetics class.

And so I advocate-- let's humor ourselves. We don't have to jump out of the closet just yet, (although I seem to be outing myself online) but the very least we can do is stop feeling guilty about what we truly love. If we're worried about what everyone else will think, at least we can not think bad things ourselves. Go take that ballet class. I bet they have a night courses after football practice.

Mini-Pigs

Sometimes it's important to think about the things that really make you happy in life:

Just a little something to brighten your day. :)

Set Your Intentions

What's the difference between an Intention and a Resolution?

I've spent the past month struggling to keep a series of resolutions, per the advice of Gretchen Rubin, but every time I go to yoga, we close our eyes and "set our intentions" for the class, and for our lives. It's so calming, and it feels so centered that I couldn't help but wonder if this was a different path that I should explore. So I've been wondering lately, what's an intention, really? And how does it differ from a resolution?

I felt like I knew the answer intuitively, but when I tried to verbalize it, it didn't make any sense. So I looked it up. My dictionary of choice is always the Oxford English Dictionary, online.

Resolution: 1. Physical conversion, dissolution, separation. Conversion to pus (rare). Death. 2. Breaking up or conversion of a non-material thing. Problem solving, logic, musical dissonance, and math problems. 3. The action or an act of resolving; determination, resolute temper. A fixed or positive intention. Determination, firmness, steadfastness of purpose; possession or resolute and unyielding mind. The elimination or easing of doubt.

Intention: 1. General Senses. The action of directing the mind or attention to something; mental application or effort; attention, intent observation, regard; endeavor. Ultimate purpose; the aim of an action. The way in which anything is to be understood; meaning significance, import.

The definition of "resolution" really hit home. It's a "physical conversion" of the self, a separation of the desirable and undesirable attributes. "Determination." "Firmness." A "resolute and unyielding mind." A resolution is a course of action that rewards the good and weeds out the bad. It's tough and it takes a lot of will power. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I couldn't help wondering, will resolutions really make me happier?

An intention is softer. It's a mindset, as opposed to a concrete action. It focuses on aspirations, the meanings behind why we do what we do. Technically, intentions (unintentionally) come before resolutions-- they're what drive us to make resolutions in the first place-- but we're often not conscious of what our specific intentions are.

For a happiness project meant to fit into the crazy-busy life of a working student who already has stress problems, perhaps intentions will be better than resolutions. Resolutions, as great as they are in certain circumstances, are not always necessary. Perhaps all it takes is a simple mantra: "This is how I want to live my life. This is who I am going to be and how I'm going to act." Whether you set your intention to be more loving; to be more responsible; to be a better friend, sometimes just by telling yourself you're going to be that person, you will be. You don't need a laundry list of actions to check off every day.