Don't Worry, What's Happy ?

My friend Sarah over on A Whole Lotta Nothin' recently wrote a damn fine post on Happiness and it got me thinking. There is so much emphasis on the quest to "be happy". But keep pushing people to better themselves and you'll only serve to remind them how crap they are. Push the bar higher, we'll only feel lower to the ground. So, what's so wrong with us anyway ? Is everyone else really so much happier and more successful than we are ? Are we truly just one of the unlucky ones ? Or does it simply look that way from the perennially slow check out lane ?

What do we even know about happy and successful ? Is that pleasurable moment boys when you knock the top off your sixth beer during Friday Night Footy really happiness ? Or does it just smell like it is ? Is success something that can be measured by money or status ? Then where does that leave Fred Hollows ? Anyone who's helped save humanity without sending them an invoice ?

The point is, if we knew what happy and successful really were, we wouldn’t be constantly chasing them, dodging them, meditating on them, studying them, worskshopping them and generally suspecting that everyone bar us has them. We'd have pinned them down, toasted the spoils and organised a testimonial dinner by now. Game over.

But of course, the real appeal of happy and successful is their sheer elusiveness. They're always but one more holiday, two Lotto wins, and three self-help books away. All we do know about happy and successful is that we're supposed to be chasing them. For that is what we've always been told - by our parents, our teachers, our mentors, magazines and movies - since Day One. Try harder kids ! Study longer, reach further, jump higher ! Come one, happy and successful can't be too far away now. You won't get them standing around pulling your sisters hair, you great dork.

We think we are missing out on something. But, missing out on what ? When was the last time someone who wasn't on smack came up to you with an idiotic grin on their face and said, "I'm blissfully happy and wildly successful ! I've got everything I ever wanted and more ?" Or even, "You know, I'm frequently satisfied with various aspects of life and I'm not presently in jail. Could it be that I'm happy and successful?".

I’m guessing, not recently. In reality, none of us knows what happy and successful really are or precisely where our hopes and our realisations might have already intersected. All we do know is what we've been led to believe so far, which is that giving us this existentialist struggle for ideals that are by definition always out of reach, equates to settling. This simply sets us up for a prolonged series of disappointments that we come to think of as 'life' - you know, it wasn't meant to be easy !!

What if an alternative perspective enabled you to keep a better focus on the things that matter, the things that don't, and the things that probably do, but are really too much bloody hassle ? What if there was a fourth window on "Play School" that made the ordinary among us look brave and strong and the high-flying supermen and superwomen look reckless and just plain silly ?

Here's a final thought punters.... what if okay was really okay ?