"The
pathway
to having isn't wanting. If you want something, you need to have a
different relationship with it other than wanting it, in order to have
it."
...
This essay,
Being Happy Like a Possibility,
is the seventh in a septology on
Happiness:
I am indebted to Udi Ipalawatte who inspired this conversation.
Any authentic conversation about / inquiry into being happy (what's the
nature of being happy? what works to make us happy?) must surely begin
with two admissions: one, we want to be happy (we really do), we covet
being happy (no one covets
being sad);
and two, when we are happy, it's only a fleeting
experience. That's happiness' dirty little
secret:
no matter what we try, whatever we do to make ourselves
happy, it only works temporarily. We're happy for a while ... then
imperceptibly the experience of being happy dissipates. It's like one
minute you're happy ... and then the next time you look, you're not.
It may take an hour, it may take a week, it may take longer, but
eventually the experience of being happy dissipates. And when we
realize it's
gone,
we try something else / different (or something new) to make ourselves
happy again (or we repeat something we remember that made us happy in
the past). And that may work. Temporarily. For a while. Until
that experience of being happy dissipates (it seems
happiness' only constant, is its fleeting temporariness).
In the early days of
the work of
transformation,
Werner
deployed the distinction "below the line / above the line"
to great effect
(interestingly
enough, at the same time, that same terminology was also being deployed
by
IBM
(International Business Machines) to designate
addressable
locations in mainframe computer memory architecture
... but that's a subject for another conversation on another occasion).
Coveting being happy, and compensating for it being temporary, is
below the line. And we do covet being happy. And we do want it
to be permanent. That's the truth. And yet when we are
happy, it's always and only temporary. No one covets
being sad.
We covet being happy. And if we could, we'd enshrine being happy as an
ongoingly permanent state, yes?
So what do you do to make yourself happy? What are your
go-to happiness guarantors? I'll start the ante-ing up
with the above the line "Being happy is a function of
choosing to be willing to have it be the way it is, whatever way it is"
(as
Werner
may have said). So: choose it the way it is. That's a surefire
access
to being happy. Good. What else? (what I'm angling for here is
something that must be in place even prior to what
Werner
is saying, for us to be happy). What must be in place / what has to be
present
before we can entertain the possibility of choosing it the way it is,
as an
access
to being happy?
Consider
this: whether it's by
sipping fine wine,
or
making a bundle of money,
or going on a date with
someone you love,
or
tasting gourmet cuisine,
or
being adored by your
fans,
or by just choosing it the way it is (those are only some of the many
below the line and above the line options for being happy), some of us
will succeed at being happy (maybe "succeed" isn't the best way of
articulating this, but it's
good enough for
jazz)
and others won't. And so my question to you now is this: what is it
about those who succeed at being happy (both below the line and above
the line) that's missing for those who don't?
Here's my two cents worth on this: happiness (long term) isn't a
function of having. It's not a function of doing. Happiness (long term)
is purely a function of being, of inventing a possibility. It's
a function of inventing the possibility of being happy. I assert
it's just possible that the only people who will be really happy,
indeed it's just possible that the only people who are
really happy, are those who invented being happy like a
possibility. And that's above the line.
