Happiness

Am I happy? I have no idea. It appears that happiness is an illusion that everyone thinks they have experienced at least once. And once we get a taste of it, we spend our entire lives trying to get more. Eventually it turns into a competition between being happy with the “amount” of happiness we have and actually enjoying being happy.

Virtually everyone aspires to be happy, and it is often said that part of being happy is accepting and appreciating who you are and what you have. Unfortunately, for most of us there is a built-in contradiction between acceptance and ambition. Perhaps we can appreciate how far we have come, but if we truly accept our lives exactly as they are, how would we be able to envision and work for something better?

Personally, I think happiness is a lie, and not just because it is weightless, has an average lifespan shorter than that of virtual particles near black holes, and is most often expressed in dollars. Essentially, happiness is a measure of how well we are able to lie to ourselves. Often we accept things we think we cannot improve and just say they are “meant to be.” Do we really believe this, or have we set our own bars low in fear of not being able to reach higher ones?

Whatever the case, one thing is certain: if we want to believe a lie, there is no one who can persuade us of it more than ourselves. And for this reason, happiness (whatever that is) lies in our own hands.