Canard Vineyard, Calistoga Appellation, Napa Valley, California,
USA
September 1, 2023
"Happiness is almost not worth talking about because the instant you
turn happiness into a goal, it isn't attainable any more. In other
words happiness isn't something you can work toward. It isn't
something you can put someplace and overcome
barriers
to get to. It is something that happens in an instant. And the truth
of the matter is that you can alter your state of happiness by simply
choosing to be willing to have it be
the way it is."
I am indebted to Sydney Rittenberg who inspired this conversation, and
to Paige
Rose
PhD who contributed material.
After a prolonged period of scrutiny and
discovery,
I realized that part of the issue I've had with being happy (or not)
was not knowing exactly what being happy is. Look: not being able to
articulate clearly what being happy is, is to not know
what being happy is. Mostly we conceptualize what being
happy is, and yet whatever that is, is really just a
pointer to a
state of mind
(albeit a nebulous experience). But that
state of mind
ie that experience may be better articulated more powerfully in some
way other than "happy". "Content" may work better: "I am content.".
"Fulfilled" may work even better: "I am fulfilled.".
"Complete" may work best: "I am complete.". Whatever it is
that we cast as being "happy" may be better articulated as being
"content", "fulfilled", or "complete", or even "alright" or "whole".
Still, with all of that distinguished, saying being "happy" is
good enough for
jazz
(at least it is for the time being).
One of the themes that's always been meandering throughout my life, is
that talking with people ie including them, is so much smarter than
trying to figure it all out or even trying to handle (most of) it by
myself. I notice all I have in here (ie in my own head)
are
the same old same old
thoughts,
the same old same old
usual gang of suspects that have rattled around in there forever.
Allowing other people in, talking openly, freely,
unflinchingly
honestly with them (my friends,
my coaches,
my loved-ones) inspires new useful, valuable,
worthwhile
ideas on which I may have taken too long to alight, if at all (ie if
ever).
And so it was recently in
a conversation
with one of
my coaches,
that something dawned on me, and I'd had
a breakthrough
in the way I held being happy. One of the ways I'd idealized being
happy is that when I'm happy, it's as if I've filled a bucket with
water, expecting it to stay full - in other words when I'm happy,
there's an expectation I'll be that way from then on (ie that the
filled bucket will stay full like an attainment). But that's not
the true nature of being happy, and holding it as true invariably leads
to disappointment. What's true is I'm happy ... and then I'm not ...
and then I'm happy ... and then I'm not ... and then I'm happy ... you
know, it's transient,
impermanent.
I realized my old ideas about being happy had to grow up. I had to take
a maturer approach.
To have being happy be like a bucket filled with water such that once
it's filled, it stays full ... is naïve in retrospect. That's
being happy like a goal or like a place to get
to or to attain. But if I can choose to be "content",
"fulfilled', or "complete" with whatever's going on in my
relationship with the conditions and
circumstances
of my life ie if I choose to be willing to be that way rather than go
for the somewhat nebulous / vague "happy", then I have something I can
articulate clearly (which makes it powerful) and I also have something
that doesn't go away when my life's conditions and
circumstances
change, in the way being happy changes (starts and stops, comes again
then goes away, full bucket / empty bucket) dependent on my life's
conditions and
circumstances.
Try it on for size. It's a way of having the possibility of being happy
always be available, even on occasions when that once-full bucket is no
longer full (for whatever the reason). Even when outside my window I
may see barbed wire fencing me in, crimping my being happy and my being
free to be and free to
act,
it's still possible to appreciate
rosesthrough
barbed wire - that is, should I choose to be willing to do so. If I
don't choose to do so (as per
Werner's coaching)
ie if I'm unwilling to have it be
the way it is,
it's on me. I already know how it turns out. I bin there
before (as Huckleberry Finn may have said).
