So, if you read my post about Rasselas, you know that I am contemplating happiness lately. So here is a question I have been thinking about.
I am a generally happy person, and barring one specific time in my life, I always have been. I am wondering if I am happy because I have all the things I need and most of the things I want or if I am happy because I am the kind of person who is pretty content with what I have. Let me explain more.
Here are the circumstances of my life that I think make me happy. My biggest values are all things I have. I love literature, reading, and teaching, and I am working on a grad degree in English. I love smart, passionate, quiet, and rational men, and I get to live with one all the time. I love my daughter, and I get to have her home with me. I have great friends who share my values and make me laugh. I get to live a double life, like a secret agent. 3.5 days of the week, I am a grad student and live a kind of young, childless life full of reading and Joss Whedon. 3.5 days of the week, I get to be a part of a very familyish circle, hanging with my daughter and going to the zoo. I don't have to choose between these two lives, and I think that is very cool. My partner makes 99.5% of the money for our family, so I am able to go to school and be at home with my daughter and have a lot of leisure time to read and do hobbies I like. So basically, of course I am happy because I am living out all my highest values every day.
But, I was also happy at other times in my life when I was working at a job that was less perfect for me, not in stable relationships, and having less time to do as I please. There are plenty of people who could look at my life this way: I am in school and probably will not complete it and get to work in my field for about 10 years. After a divorce, I had to find a way to divide my daughter's time between me and her father, and it is often difficult to work out how to do that and how to resolve any disputes we have about her. During half the week, I scramble to get all my homework and working done, so that I can spend the other half with my daughter. I see very little of my partner during this first half, as he works long hours to support us. During the second half of the week, I have to figure out a way to balance time with Livy and time with Aaron, since I didn't see either of them during the first half of the week. It would be possible for my life to be described that way too, and put like that, it sounds difficult.
So my question: Am I happy because I work through the problems I encounter and find ways to pursue my values? Or am I happy because I have the kind of disposition that makes me feel pretty content with whatever life I am living (within reason) and because I am a "look on the bright side" kind of person?
Just for more background info, I am pretty laid back. I have goals, but they aren't terribly lofty. They are fairly easily achievable with steady work, and they leave plenty of time for other pursuits. When one goal or plan doesn't work out, it's easy for me to let it go and find another that suits me just as well. Am I able to be happy more easily than another might be because I am laid back like this? Is happiness harder for more ambitious, more goal oriented, more planny people? Would a person with a different kind of personality be as happy as I am under similar circumstances?
4 comments:
Reading this post makes me feel like you just came into our living room and joined our conversation. Want some wine or cheeze-its? We're about 15 minutes into the same subject as your post.
You wrote: "So my question: Am I happy because I work through the problems I encounter and find ways to pursue my values? Or am I happy because I have the kind of disposition that makes me feel pretty content with whatever life I am living (within reason) and because I am a "look on the bright side" kind of person?"
The answer is Yes and Yes. It IS your disposition, your nature to be happy. And yes, it is also because you are focused on pursuing your values every day.
You could insert John into a lot of what you said about yourself. He's a happy guy. He adapts well and always seems to be content with his life. He's one of those smart, passionate, quiet and rational men that you mentioned. He lives by his values and morals.
Although I believe that most of it is your personality type, it's also being an Objectivist that makes you the person that you are. You are doing what is best for you and meeting your own needs as well as Livy's and Aaron's. You don't depend on the power of something bigger than you controlling what comes your way. You have surrounded yourself with what you value and lead your own life every day.
I wish I could say the same about being happy for myself, but battling my mental issues makes it hard for me to ever feel happiness for very long. And I'm never content. But I fight the battle with my disorder every day and have a good partner to help me.
There needs to be more of you and John in this world!
Bless your little cotton socks! You're happy because you are disposed to be. As am I. Some poor blighters out there are disposed towards negativity and unhappiness, and they don't even know they are choosing such a sad existence!
I am The Happiest Person I Know, and if I painted my life's picture for you as we speak, even you would wonder why....I'm facing some very heavy 'stuff' at the moment, and yet I still choose to be happy.
I hope you're grateful for your 'go with the flow' sunny disposition, I certainly am. Just enjoy it - you've definitely got it over driven people who will always have a mountain to climb and never reach happiness.
Keep up the great life.
Live Life Happy!
Ansley,
Aaron basically says what you say, that there is some of both involved. He is happy in certain ways, like he feels good about doing his values. But he is always striving for something. When he reaches one goal, he seems to get dissatisfied until he can reach the next one. I wonder if that makes it harder for him to be happy? He calls me a happy self-reporter; basically he means that because I look on the bright side and adapt easily, I feel report a state of 75% happy and content as very happy. Whereas, he might be focused on working toward the 25%. Personality is weird, huh? I can't imagine being another kind of person, and so it is hard to think of how other kinds of people will act or feel.
I think your mental issues almost put you in a different game. The person I was when I had post-partum depression wasn't even me, exactly. I don't know if your particular illness ever goes away, but I'm glad you have John to help you.
Jacqueline,
I do agree that it is partly disposition at least, but you make it sound like it is better to be one way that they other, and I don't believe that. The world needs sunny, adaptable dispositions like mine and yours and Anne of Green Gables, but I wouldn't want to live in a world that didn't have the ambitious driven people, who cannot be content until they have cured a disease or invented something new or finished their novel, and then cannot be content after that until they do something else great. I think everyone should work on being more rational to get the most out of their disposition, but I can't really think one personality type is better than another. Basic disposition is metaphysically given, or at least mostly, I think. So, we just have to accept what we have and make the most of it.
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