#Microblog Monday 473: Worth Pursuing
Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.
*******
The sub-head on this article — “My clinical work has shown me that happiness is a ghost that’s not worth pursuing – there are far wiser goals in life” — begs the question: What is worth pursuing? The article argues for “reasonable contentment,” which is sort of happiness lite. As in a balance of happiness with unhappiness with neutral moments in between. You don’t need to really pursue reasonable contentment in the same way you need to pursue happiness (or make yourself happy). Reasonable contentment is accepting what is.
I don’t know if happiness is not worth pursuing at all. If that were the case, we wouldn’t have an impetus to travel, view art, eat good food, engage in crafts, or engage in thousands of other actions that are all about pursuing happiness. We don’t shell out money for a restaurant meal we think will make us reasonably content. We can get that from a bowl of cereal at home. Why spend hours in a car, driving to visit someone, when you can achieve reasonable contentment with a FaceTime call?
What do you think of the argument?
*******
Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.
5 comments
Oh, I completely agree. “Happiness” as a grail seems a Sisyphean task and even vaguely unethical given the state of the world. (Is it possible to be happy in a world where we know children are dying of starvation?) But joy, delight, bliss, satisfaction, contentment… and making those moments possible for others–that seems more accessible and valuable to me.
This post came at a a very helpful time for me. Thank you so much, Mel! I really like how he talked about how pain is a part of the human experience. I think the activities that help bring momentary relief and distraction can be pretty helpful, but they just bring temporary escape from sadness. It’s a tough question when our partners say they are unhappy and ask us (kind of perpetually going on empty) to help them feel happier or more cared for. Maybe supported or connected could be a substitute for happy.
The most contented time of my life came when I was still processing my No Kidding life, and when my father died, so there were lots of sad moments. But I was doing a lot of other things that were challenging, exciting, and filled different needs. I remember one day realising I was contented with my life, and being totally surprised! I think I was simply struggling with identifying as “happy.”
It’s all in our definitions and perception, isn’t it? I love Maya’s comment and definition. I see that he defined “relative happiness” as a state of reasonable contentment, with intermittent joy and pain. I think that’s pretty perfect really. Expecting anything more is going to take away the joy and peace that contentment can bring. Satisfaction = perception minus expectations.
Hmmm. I agree with Mali, “It’s all in our definitions and perception.”
I think happy doesn’t have to mean perfect, pie-in-the-sky. I think if you’re going for ecstatically happy all the time, that’s unrealistic and then dims the joy of the happy times. You can’t have happy without sad. Happy all the time isn’t special or marked, “feast everyday no feast.” Contented sounds good, but also kind of… meh (or mid, to quote my students, who claim meh is old). Good enough, but not too much.
I also think though that a lot of my pain in my trials of infertility came from seeing only one “happy ending.” Only one outcome that could truly be happy. And everything else was not acceptable to my brain and heart, and that caused misery. So there’s that. Excellent thinky post and link!
Happy, for me, is momentary. So, all the annoyance of traveling somewhere isn’t happy, but ending up seeing that beautiful whatever is. I like contentment – feeling satisfied with what I have. Wanting to do more things, but not being disappointed if it doesn’t work out. I’d like to get back there one of these days. I think it’s really all about definitions, though. My contentment may be the same as your happiness, and my happiness may be your joy.